


Downpour

by winwinnie



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, But its medical drugs so i mean-, Drug Use, Drug trials, Gen, HE GOES TO SPACE, Its more plot based, Lee Chan | Dino-centric, M/M, Not Romance Based, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Road Trips, The relationships will only appear in certain chapters, This whole concept is a bit weird, and a witch trial, cyborg, flower shop au, space, there were boats, theres a weird fantasy part where chan's an elf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-05-30 01:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 48,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15085808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winwinnie/pseuds/winwinnie
Summary: He wakes up alone, with hay poking through his clothes and sunlight in his eyes, and he knows.This is not where he went to sleep.--------Chan is not usually a risk taker. But he signs up for an experimental drug trial, and it turns his life upside down.Nothing makes sense anymore, especially not the twelve locked doors that lead to his, and the strange dreams that don't seem like dreams at all.The strange dreams that he can't wake up from.





	1. IT ALL LEADS BACK TO THE RAIN

**_It all leads back to the rain_ **

 

 

_'Pledis Drug Trials Volunteers will be paid in advance to trial an experimental drug_

_Full insurance guaranteed_

_Limited availability due to time pressures_

_Contact ————————- for more details'_

 

The poster is torn and faded, the edge stained with a mysterious liquid and surrounded by other equally dirty adverts, numbers scrawled over them proclaiming leering messages.

The whole alleyway seems to lead to the poster, bin bags spilling litter onto the street somehow pointing to paper, puddles forming everywhere except underneath it.

Behind him, people continue their hurried walking, cursing at their misfortune to be caught in the storm.

But it catches catches Chan's eye.

From where he's stood, sheltering in an alleyway from the rain, it seems bright despite the faded colours and he's drawn to it.

He walks towards it, brushing away a loose flyer to make out the words properly.

Embarrassingly, it's the word ' _paid_ ' that catches his eye.

He narrows his eyes at it, suspicious of the bright pink writing. Taking up the offer would obviously be a stupid idea, one he would never even usually consider.

But the late payment notice for his apartment burns a hole in his pocket.

Above him, the rain seems to get harder, thunder rumbling through the sky and water pouring in streams off his umbrella. It's definitely the worst storm this year, and considering there's a storm practically every day, that's saying a lot.

Chan's fingers reach for his pen on their own, and before he knows it the number is written on his hand, ink already beginning to run. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice warns him against phoning up.

He's never heard of Pledis before, and there are plenty of horror stories about drug trials going wrong.

He's never even been a huge risk taker.

But as thunder roars again, he subconsciously keeps his hand dry.

 

————————

 

"Are you actually considering it?"

Chan looks up guiltily from his cereal, futilely trying to hide the number on his hand.

"I've said before, I don't mind paying for your half of the rent this month. I don't want you to feel pressured into doing anything just to pay."

Chan drops his spoon into the bowl, watching as it sends ripples across the milk and the remaining bits of cereal spiral lazily around, "I don't want you to pay for me again."

Mingming sits across from him, taking the spoon from Chan's hand, "So are you actually considering it?"

He makes an effort to grab the spoon back, but it's halfhearted and Mingming easily dodges his hand. "What else can I do?" He finally says dipping his index finger into the milk instead, "I'm pretty much out of options here."

"Let me pay." Repeats the older boy, sighing at Chan's bowl.

"I've already said no to that. I'm not owing you more than I already do." His finger mover in a lazy circle, collecting the remaining pieces of cereal into a whirlpool.

"What about your parents?"

Chan's finger stops mid-swirl, causing a small wave of milk to spill onto the table.

"No."

"Chan, they said they'd be willing to help you. Why are you so against i-"

"I don't need their help." Chan's finger has resumed its swirling, but it's angry, and milk rises up dangerously close to the rim of the bowl. "I said I'd never go crawling back to them until they apologised."

"Chan-"

"And have they apologised? No. So I'm not going to ask them for help."

Mingming looks embarrassed, cheeks flushing slightly, "I shouldn't have mentioned them."

Chan stands up, grabbing his bowl and placing it in the sink. "You shouldn't have." He agrees, his voice hard. The Chinese boy cringes at the venom in his tone, obviously regretting ever starting the conversation in the first place.

Walking over to his room, Chan pauses. "I'm going to do it."

"What?" Mingming's confusion is clear.

"The drug trial. I'm going to sign up."

There's silence for a moment, before he finally replies. "Okay."

Chan's not sure what he was expecting, maybe a protest, maybe an attempt to persuade him out of it. But Mingming had always been shy, hiding away from conflict and choosing his words carefully. He'd become more confident over time, but the tone of Chan's had caused him to revert back. He shuts his bedroom door and picks up the phone.

The next few weeks seem to go too fast, and though Mingming's eyes never stop doubting, Chan doesn't change his decision. He even manages to scrape together enough money for that month's rent by working overtime, although his classwork suffers majorly.

He enters Pledis Building without a second thought.

It wasn't particularly easy to find, tucked away in some backstreet hidden from the view of the main road. He'd walked past the street a few times, his phone directions not being helpful at all.

The shops and offices surrounding it seemed to lean precariously over him, their broken windows leering like teeth. Paint peeled off their doors in huge strips. Dirty puddles lay scattered on the street like land mines, their grey water reaching towards his shoes.

You would never be able to find the right place unless you knew where to look, a fact that doesn't particularly fill Chan with joy.

But he isn't stupid enough to sign up without knowing anything about the company.

He'd googled it a few days ago, surprised at the amount of results that had appeared. He'd easily found the Pledis website, navigating to the page with drug trial details on and reading it through multiple times. He stands outside of the huge building, recalling all the information.

_Thirteen patients._

_Staggered trials, to observe effects closely._

_Permanent monitoring._

Pledis' walls seem to be a shade lighter than the others.

He pushes through the doors with more force than necessary. They swing violently, slamming into the walls and causing a loud sound to ring out through the reception.

The receptionist, a lady in her mid-forties, glares at him, her perfectly manicured fingernails tapping on her desk impatiently. Chan shrugs at her, too tired to attempt to apologise.

He makes his way over to the waiting area and sits on one of the beanbags.

_Beanbags_ , he thinks, _it must be half-decent if they have beanbags_.

The lady at reception rolls her eyes at him and goes back to 'working' on her computer.

Chan relaxes into his seat, more comfortable now her eyes aren't on him, and pulls out his phone, running his fingers nervously down the screen. Trying to look like he's busy, he checks the time.

10:06

His appointment was at 10:00.

Heart sinking, he stands awkwardly back up, hyper aware of the receptionist's sigh. The instructions he received over the phone had told him to be at Pledis by 10:00 at the latest, but the time he'd spent trying to actually find the building had delayed him.

He walks back over to the exit, pocketing his phone and trying to avoid the receptionist's stare. He presses his hand up against the door, his palm fogging up the cold glass, and is just about to open it when the lady's voice interrupts him. "Are you Lee Jung Chan?"

He turns, surprised at the use of his full name. He was pretty sure he'd only given them the shortened version.

"Just Lee Chan is fine."

The lady nods like she understands, but Chan knows she doesn't care about his name in the slightest. Her eyes flick consistently back to her computer screen, like she can't wait to get the conversation over with. "You're late."

"I couldn't find the building." Chan's excuse seems weak under her steely gaze, and he shuffles awkwardly. He still hasn't moved from the door, not knowing whether his appointment is still open.

"You didn't bring a travel pack."

Chan's eyebrows furrow, "I'm travelling?"

She rolls her eyes, tapping her fingers again, "You'll be staying under observation for a few weeks. We can't be expected to supply everything for you."

"Oh." His cheeks flush. He hadn't through that far ahead, too preoccupied with explaining to his university and job about the trials. "Do you want me to go home and get some?"

"I'm sure we can find something here. We can't afford to waste any more time delaying the first dose." She stands up, pressing a few buttons on the keyboard, and makes her way towards a door on the left hand side of the room, motioning for him to follow her.

He walks across the reception to where she's waiting. The lady opens the door in a fluid motion and steps through, not holding it open behind her for him. Chan just about gets through the door in time, letting it click behind him.

She leads him through a maze of corridors, some displaying various scientific laboratories and others with only metal doors leading off from them. Each door is identical, their silver glinting in the harsh white light.

The scientists take no notice of them as they walk past and Chan looks curiously into their labs. All the walls are white, just like in the corridor, and strange bottles of chemicals line the walls with even stranger machines underneath them.

But by far, the strangest thing is that they're all wearing huge protective suits.

Chan's eyes follow them. They seem to be scanning machines over a huge metal box and writing down the results. The metal box is even on wheels, but he notices that they're secured to the floor and the fastenings on the side of the box are padlocked securely.

The receptionist sighs impatiently, and Chan looks up, realising that he's stopped walking altogether. He quickly tries to catch up to her, but she takes no notice of his struggles and continues at an even faster pace, her high heels clicking against the floor.

Finally reaching her, he looks around and only realises it was because she was slowing down. They've reached a corridor that has no door at the end.

It's lined instead with metal doors on both sides, all heavily locked with complicated looking devices. From what Chan can tell, they're all locked from the outside. As they slow down even more, he realises that there are names written just above the centre of the door.

_Kwon Soonyoung_ , he reads, _Kim Mingyu, Chwe Hansol_. There are even some Chinese characters that he doesn't recognise.

They must be the other volunteers.

The lady finally stops at the end of the corridor, facing the very last door. This one doesn't look like it's been locked properly as it's slightly open. One of the hinges is rusted over.

The name on it reads _'Lee Jung Chan_ '.

"We must get that fixed." mutters the lady, before pushing the door fully open.

Chan steps into the room. It's small, with white walls like the rest of Pledis. In the corner, a smaller room leads off from the main area, and Chan can just about see a toilet in it. There's a wooden desk on the right hand side, and just in front of that is a single bed.

"Is this where I'll be staying?"

There's no reply.

Chan spins round to face the receptionist, only to find that she's not there and that the door has closed behind him. There's a click from behind it, and a red light turns on just above the doorway.

Locked.

He steps back. There's no use trying to force the door open, and there's not even a handle to try and open it with. Turning around, he tries to take in his surroundings more than he originally did.

The room is just as empty.

In the corner of his eye, he notices one of the desk drawers is slightly ajar. He makes his way over, his footsteps loud in the silence, and opens it.

Inside the drawer is a small vial filled with white tablets. He picks it up, peering inside. They look just like pain relief pills, but a gut feeling tells him that it's something else.

Something moved in the corner of the room, and he spins round to face it, only to find a security camera.

"Hey!" He says, shaking the tablets at it, "Am I meant to take these?"

The camera doesn't reply.

He sticks his middle finger up at it, before sitting on the bed and staring at the bottle. There's nothing else in the entire room except the pills, so they must have meant him to take them.

Suspiciously, he unscrews the lid of the vial, shaking a tablet into the palm of his hand. This was not what he'd expected from the drug trials at all.

The camera focuses on on him, and he hold the tablet closer to his face, inspecting it. It's pure white and small, about the size of a tic tac, with a thin breakable line down the middle.

Trying not to overthink his decisions, he places it on his tongue and swallows.

There's an immediate effect.

The world seems to tilt sideways, and all of a sudden Chan's head seems like it's filled with rocks. The bottle slips out of his hand and he's vaguely aware of it hitting the floor, tablets spilling everywhere.

He falls on his side, the bed cushioning his side. His eyelids seem to be magnetised together and he can barely fight to keep them open. It's taking all of his strength just to stay awake.

Dark seeps into the edges of his vision, and his eyes close once more.


	2. A KING AND HIS CASTLE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's never seen the stars in real life before.

He wakes up to light on his face. It's bright, too bright to be coming from his room. More like sunlight, the kind that seeps through curtains in the early hours of the morning.

He opens his eyes slowly.

Sunlight is angled just over his eyes, and he's blinded by it. He raises an arm, trying to stop the bright light, but instead of the soft duvet he'd fallen asleep on, the material beneath him is rough and scratches his arm.

He rolls over and it pokes up through his clothes, digging into his side. Chan squints at it through the harsh light. It's definitely not a bed, but how was that possible? Unless he'd been moved after he'd passed out, there was no way that bed had changed into straw while he'd been asleep.

Straw.

He sits straight up, eyes adjusting to the light quickly. He's sitting on a hay bale, stray pieces poking through the soft material of his clothes.

There are more hay bales surrounding him, and the sunlight that woke him up is streaming through a huge pair of open double doors.

He's in a barn.

Chan runs a hand through his hair, trying not to groan at the obscene amount of dust that rises from the motion. Why a barn? What kind of drug trial involved volunteers being drugged unconscious and then put in barns?

There's a small movement near his feet, and he looks down. A small goat is licking his left foot, its tongue like sandpaper down his toes. He stares at it.

A goat.

This is real.

Trying to hold back a shriek, he jumps up, trying to get away from the offending creature as quickly as possible. He lands haphazardly on top of the hay bale, the goat looking up at him with huge innocent eyes.

He'd never been a fan of animals, a few too many bad experiences with huge dogs when he was a child. They weren't scary, per se, he just didn't particularly enjoy them closer than ten feet away.

"Shoo!" He waves his hands in its direction, trying to fend the creature off. It doesn't move away, instead bleating softly and tilting its head at Chan questioningly. "Go away!"

His voice echoes in the barn, bouncing off the wooden walls. He tries again to push the animal away, but the goat doesn't budge.

Instead, it clicks its hooves on the floor and leaps up onto the hay bale, resuming its cleaning of his foot.

This time, he can't hold back his scream.

As it summoned by the noise, a boy maybe a couple of years older than himself walks into the barn. He rubs at his eyes briefly, before seemingly noticing Chan and the goat for the first time, and his mouth forms a small 'o'. Then surprisingly, his face spits into a huge grin.

"Sammy!"

Chan has just enough time to jump off the haybale and safely onto the floor before the boy sprints towards the goat and scoops it up into his arms, rubbing its fur affectionately. The goat bleats happily and licks his cheek. A line of saliva connects the two, and Chan shudders, but the boy doesn't seem to mind.

He only grins again and continues to coo at the goat.

Chan's never understood animal lovers.

"Excuse me," he starts, trying to get the boys attention. As strange as he may be, he might know where Chan is, and more importantly, how Chan can get home.

But before he can even ask his question, the boy turns round and starts to speak. "Channie! I wondered where you were!"

"Channie?" Chan's pretty certain he's never met this guy before, and yet he's already being called  _Channie?_

"Why were you in the barn? I know I said you were welcome to go anywhere, but I didn't really mean sleeping in barns."

"Listen-"

"Couldn't you find anywhere nicer to sleep? There's a spare bed in my room, but I already showed you yours."

"I'm sorry but-"

"Unless you didn't like your room, which I can understand. Maybe you were homesick. But why would sleeping in a barn make you any less homesick?"

"Uh, what-"

"Was my singing annoying? I've been told it's pretty loud, so I can be quieter if you want-"

"LISTEN." Chan's voice is louder than he expected, but it makes the boy finally stop talking. "I'm really sorry, but my memory isn't that great," It's not the best excuse, but it's the only one he can come up with at the moment, "I got lost and ended up in the barn by accident. Could you introduce yourself again?"

The boy's face drops for a second, but it's quickly replaced with a smile that's even brighter than the last, "Of course! I'm Seokmin!" He pauses for a second before continuing, "Did you forget the way to your room?"

"Yeah." The lie comes easily. He's sure that he's never met Seokmin before, but the smiling boy seems to know him.  He decides to play along. The drugs company could have left him anywhere, and he'd prefer to stay with people that claimed to know him rather than living on the streets.

Seokmin seems to relax at his reply, finally putting the goat down and bounding over towards Chan. "Don't worry too much about your memory," he says, grinning, "Everyone here is really nice! As long as you stick with us, you should be fine."

Idly, Chan wonders who 'us' is.

"That reminds me!" Seokmin pulls Chan out of the barn, "I should introduce you to my friends!"

He takes a few steps away from the younger, clearly expecting him to follow, but Chan can't move.

He can only stare at the huge castle in front of him.

The very bricks seems intimidating, stone walls stretching out in intricate detail. Towers reach to the sky, their colour faded, and vines grow up parts of the walls, their flowers like tiny spots of paint.

People mill around, some waving as they spot Seokmin. Their clothes are strange, not a style Chan's ever seen, and although he'd not most fashionably-minded, he's pretty sure that the latest fashion trend isn't looking like someone three hundred years ago.

Self-consciously, he looks down, expecting to see his incredibly out of place jeans and t-shirt. Instead, he sees the same style of clothes that the everyone else is wearing.

His shirt is made of soft cotton, plain and buttoned up, and his trousers are a material he doesn't know. The remainders of the hay bale cling to them. He tries to brush them off before Seokmin drags him off again.

"The castle is pretty cool, isn't it?" Says the older, smiling happily. Chan squints at it. Its okay, he guesses, as far as castles go. He doesn't know much about what makes a castle 'cool', since South Korea's ones look nothing like this-

Something finally clicks.

Yeah, the castle is cool.

But its definitely not in South Korea.

Chan gulps. He's not hungry or thirsty, so he doubts he was drugged long enough to be in an entirely new country. And even if he was in a different country, how come they were still speaking Korean?

Unless Seokmin was working for Pledis and the castle wasn't actually real, none of it made sense.

How was this possible?

Chan's silence doesn't seem to affect Seokmin, who only laughs. "I was pretty intimidated by it at first, as well. You're not the only country boy who's never seen a castle quite as magnificent as this one before."

He doesn't have time to process the fact  that he's lived in a city his entire life before the older is pulling him towards a small door in the castle's huge walls, the wooden frame almost completely hidden by ivy.

Chan glances to the huge drawbridge that everyone else seems to be entering the castle through, and then back to the door.

"Why do I get the feeling we aren't supposed to go through this door?" He asks, stepping through anyway. Seokmin closes it behind them, fastening a small lock at the back with a click.

"Because we aren't." He grabs Chan's hand and drags him through the corridor.

At Chan's startled face, he laughs, patting his back reassuringly. "Don't worry," he says, before taking a step back and sizing the younger up, "The only people who could catch us are the king's highest servants. Joshua's a total pushover when you get to know him, and Jeonghan will let anyone younger than him go free as long as they say they're 'his child'."

Chan's still pretty sceptical, but Seokmin turns away and continues down the corridor, so he drops the subject. The older seems pretty confident in his rule-breaking, and Chan can't exactly go wandering around the castle on his own when he doesn't even know what country he's in.

They walk in silence after that, the only noise the sound of their feet on the ground. It seems uncharacteristic for the older, but Chan doesn't think too hard about it, and although the darkness seems to build up around him, he simply keeps his eyes on the ground and focuses on trying not to catch his feet on a stray brick.

After what seems like ten minutes, but was probably only about two, Seokmin finally stops. Just in front of him is an identical door to the one they entered from.

"Well." Something about the tone in Seokmin's voice has changed.

It's laced with steel now, hardened and cold. It fits perfectly with the silence earlier, and Chan takes a step back at how empty the words seem.

The happy tone of before is gone.

"This is as far as I can go." He turns to Chan, eyes dark, "We can't both disappear, it'll look too suspicious."

"Disappear?" Chan echoes. Suddenly, the trust he laid in the older seems misplaced. His personality had completely changed in a matter of seconds.

Seokmin doesn't reply, stepping round Chan and starting to head back down the corridor. He doesn't look back once, and his footsteps don't echo anymore. He simply disappears into the darkness like a shadow.

Chan doesn't move to follow him.

Something at the back of his mind keeps his feet rooted to the ground until he can't see the older at all. The change in his personality seems unnatural. As he'd left Chan behind, his words had seemed scripted and forced, like all the soul had been sucked out of them.

He'd trusted the first Seokmin after only a few minutes.

He didn't dare to think what the dark eyed one would do to him if he'd followed.

Suddenly, the tunnel seems a lot colder, waves of goosebumps travelling down his bare arms. He rubs his hands down them uselessly, trying to keep himself warm.

It doesn't work.

The door seems to loom over him, it's real size distorted, but Chan doesn't want to still be in the corridor if Seokmin comes back.

Slowly he pushes it open.

"Seungkwan, did you forget to lock the door again?"

Chan freezes.

It's just his luck that there are people on the other side.

"What? No! It's probably just Seokmin again."

There are footsteps getting closer, and suddenly someone is trying to shut the door. They're strong, but Chan's frozen in place. His hand remains on the door, keeping it in place.

The force lessens, and the door swings open fully, revealing Chan to the entire room.

It's some sort of kitchen, with a small fire going in the corner and huge pots of soup bubbling away on hearth. There's no accessible escape route, due to the large number of people all crammed in the room at once. Some aren't even chefs, Chan notices, two of them are in full armour and others just look completely out of place.

The man who opened the door's mouth is hanging open. He looks like he's struggling for words, and judging by how loudly he defended himself earlier, Chan doesn't expect that it happens very often.

"Well, he's not Seokmin."

The silence is finally broken by one of the men in armour, who looks disinterested with the whole situation. He places a card down on the table, continuing a card game the others had forgotten in favour of staring at Chan.

The man holding the door open, Seungkwan- probably, glares at him. "We  _know_ that Minghao. The problem is that we don't know how he found that tunnel."

"Seokmin showed it to me." At the sound of Chan's voice, all the attention that had been on Seungkwan and Minghao's possible fight was immediately back on him, "He sent me."

There's a confused silence for a few seconds, before they all seem to accept it and go back to what they were originally doing.

The kitchen is filled with noise again all the hostility from before has disappeared.

Seungkwan motions for him to enter the room, and when Chan finally moves, he shuts the door behind him.  
"So what's your name?" He asks, stealing a slice of bread off the table next to them and stuffing it into his mouth.

"Chan." He replies, and the other nods like he knew all along.

"Okay, Chan, I have no idea why Seokmin sent you but I'm honestly not going to question him at this point."

Chan raises his eyebrows. He wouldn't question Seokmin either, especially with that dark look in his eyes.

"I guess I should probably introduce to everyone," Seungkwan says, pulling Chan towards Minghao and the other gamblers. He doesn't even wait for Chan to reply before continuing, and Chan gets the idea that he never stops talking.

"The knight is Minghao, and the two cooks slacking off with him are Jeonghan and Soonyoung." Minghao doesn't even look up at the mention of his name, but the other two grin at Chan.

"So cute!" Coos Jeonghan, from where he's relaxing on a table.

Seungkwan rolls his eyes, "I still can't believe you two actually still have jobs."

"As head chef, it's my job today make sure no one else slacks off." Jeonghan protests, but he's grinning slyly.

The others have obviously heard this before, as they simply ignore him. Soonyoung grins even wider than before.

"Kwannie, you know I can't cook." He says, shrugging.

"So why are you a chef then?" Exclaims Seungkwan, but it's a lost battle. They simply go back to their card game, Jeonghan's pile of tokens looking suspiciously bigger than it was before.

Seungkwan sighs, before pulling Chan towards one of the ovens, where a tall man is standing. He's the only one actually working in the entire kitchen, but it doesn't seem to bother him. Instead, he continues stirring the contents of a huge pot, occasionally adding something from the pile of ingredients next to him. "That's Mingyu." says Seungkwan.

"I'm Hansol." says one of the men standing by Mingyu, before Seungkwan can introduce him, "And that's Junhui." He gestured to the other man in armour.

There's a visible change in Seungkwan's face as he looks at Hansol, but before Chan can work out what it is, the door that leads to the castle bursts open.

Chan is dragged towards him, and amidst the concerned mutters, he's somehow passed from Seungkwan to Jeonghan.

"Josh," he says, face awash with worry, "Is everything alright?"

The man, Josh, looks at Chan with curiosity but holds out a letter for Jeonghan this see, "It's from the King, to Wonwoo and Jihoon."

Chan doesn't know who any of those people are , but by Jeonghan's gasp, he guesses that they must be important.

"Wonwoo and Jihoon?" His tone is quieter now, a total contrast to how he'd appeared before.

Josh nods. "His condition must be getting worse. I can't think of any other reason why he'd want to see them."

Jeonghan's face is pale, and the hand that's gripping Chan's shoulder is trembling. "I see."

"Maybe it's for the best, Hannie." Josh says, but his lip trembles and his eyes are damp.

There's a few seconds of silence before Jeonghan lunges forward and pulls Josh into a tight hug, hanging onto him as if his life depends on it. The letter slips from Josh's fingers as they sink to the floor, faces buried in each others shoulders.

It's a moment of raw emotion, and Chan feels like he's watching something much more intimate than a hug.

A strange sense of homesickness fills his chest, choking up his lungs and squeezing them tight. He misses Mingming, and their apartment, and his city, and even his goddamn cell at Pledis because at least then he knew where he was.

He misses the constant rain, the endless spiral of streets he lives in, the university classes that send him to sleep.

He misses the stacked plates by the sink that he always means to wash but never actually gets round too, the bright duvet cover he's had since fifteen, the mug by the side of his bed that's filled with chewed pencils.

He misses his parents.

It feels stupid, that the hatred he's felt for years has disappeared within a few hours. He feels weak and stupid, but he wants nothing more than to hide in his parents arms and forget the world exists.

He's always missed their hugs.

But he's not home. He's in some strange castle, in a country he doesn't recognise, surrounded by people that he doesn't know. He's all alone yet everyone seems to know who he is.

What if he never gets home?

What if he's stuck here forever?

What if-

"Chan." He spins round to see Seungkwan holding out the letter to him. It's slightly crumpled from its landing on the floor, and he takes it from the older's hand without thinking. "Take this to Wonwoo and Jihoon."

It's not a question but an instruction, and Seungkwan is pushing him out of the door before he can protest or even ask who Wonwoo and Jihoon are.

The door shuts behind him, and he's all alone.

There's no way to know where he's going, or even who he's going too, but the letter in his hand is heavy and he knows it's important, more important that any question he can ask.

He takes a step into the corridor.

The second one soon follows, and he turns left, turns right, continues down the maze of doors and bare walls.

There are no signs to guide him, but he doesn't stop walking. If he doesn't stop, he'll eventually make it, or at least see someone that can point him in the right direction.

He keeps walking.

The floors don't change, their polished stone glinting in the sunlight and his footsteps ringing out in the emptiness. Yet there is still no one.

He keeps walking.

The light at the window softens and melts into evening, though he could swear he's only been walking for a few minutes. His shadow lengthens, the edges blurring into the orange glow.

He keeps walking.

He keeps walking, though he's losing hope of finding the library. He could be in the same place that he started in, and he'd have no idea.

He keeps walking, and someone grabs his arm.

"Hey-" the stranger whispers, pulling Chan into a nearby doorway- "Where are you going?"

Chan looks down at the letter in his hand, "The library." It's slightly crumpled, but the envelope is still mostly intact, and he doesn't think Wonwoo and Jihoon care about the quality that much. 

"That's where you  _were_ going." Before Chan has a chance to question what the stranger means by that, he's pulled back out of the doorway, " _Now,_  you're coming with me."

And they're running through the corridor, no one to see where to. The stranger takes charge, leading Chan through the corridors like it's the easiest thing in the world, and although Chan knows the letter in his hand is important, the man in front of him like a breath of fresh air.

Their footsteps echo, but there's no one to hear, and as if by magic, the stranger pushes open a final door and steps outside.

It takes him a few moments to realise they've stopped, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, but when he finally notices, the letter in his hand is heavy with guilt.

"I need to deliver this letter." He finally says, taking a step back.

"You don't  _need_  to do anything." The man grabs the letter from his hand. As his fingers brush the envelope, he stiffens momentarily, but it's gone so quickly that Chan almost didn't notice it. "You have as much time as you want. What's the worst that can happen you don't do your job? Someone doesn't get a message, but they send someone else and the message is delivered anyway."

As he talks, the man sits on the grass just outside the door, and gestures for Chan to join him.

"What's your name?" He eventually asks, eyes staring into the distance.

"Chan." It feels like the fiftieth time he's introduced himself today, but somehow there's something different about this.

"I'm Seungcheol."

There's silence, and Chan realised that there's no one around apart from them. The other people he saw in front of the castle when he was with Seokmin have completely disappeared.

It's almost as if they were never there.

"What are you doing here, Chan?" Seungcheol's voice is soft, but his question is harsh, accusatory.

Chan frowns, "What do you mean?"

"You aren't from here, are you."

The words send a jolt down his spine. He doesn't know how Seungcheol knows, but it's like a safety blanket has been ripped off and there's nothing left to hide behind.

"What do you mean?" It feels stupid to repeat himself, but his mind is blank and no other words seem to fit the situation.

Seungcheol turns to face him, his eyebrows raised, "You don't seem to know anything about anything, you got lost on the way to the biggest room in the castle, and-" he turns away, but his voice remains clear, "You don't know who I am."

Before Chan can ask what he means by that, Seungcheol answers him.

"I'm the king of this stupid castle."

There's silence.

Where the orange painted the sky had faded to a midnight blue, indigo streaking between the silver clouds. Seungcheol's face is shadowed with darkness.

He can see the royalty in the way he sits, his back straight and chin up, regal power flooding through his veins. Every movement is a second thought, carefully calculated. Each breath could send the house of cards tumbling down.

"Oh." It's a reply that doesn't seem enough, but Seungcheol smiles.

"You're probably the only person that I've ever met that doesn't know who I am." He says, and the smile on his face stretches, "And you're definitely the only person that's reacted like that."

Chan can't help but smile back, even with his next question already tugging at his lips, "Are you ill?"

"Yes." Seungcheol stiffens at the question but replies anyway, his grin sliding off his face momentarily before being plastered back on.

"Are you going to die?"

There's a pause before he replies this time, "Yes."

He doesn't continue speaking, and Chan doesn't ask again. In the back of his mind, Joshua and Jeonghan embrace each other on replay.

They sit together and watch the moon appear in the sky, the silence comforting. The stars twinkle above them like tiny diamonds, a stunning contrast to the eternal grey mist of his city, the rain and fog blocking out the night.

Chan's never seen the stars in real life before.

Somewhere between the stars and the soft grass beneath his hands, his eyelids get heavy. The floor seems comfortable and softer than any mattress he's ever had, and suddenly he's fighting to stay awake.

He fights it for a few minutes, before the fatigue wins him over and pulls him onto the damp ground, grass tickling his cheeks.

It's so peaceful here that the homesickness in his chest seems like a memory.

"Thank you."

It takes Chan a few seconds to realise that Seungcheol had spoken to him, his eyes flickering closed. "What for?"

Seungcheol tilts his head until it's parallel with Chan's and keeps smiling until his grin is splitting his face in two.

"For treating me like I'm normal. I'm sick of being fragile and weak," he scoffs, eyes crinkling with a joke only he knows, "Just because I'm going to die doesn't mean I can't live."

"That's okay." Replies Chan, voice muffled from being pressed into the ground. His eyes have shut and won't open again, like they've been superglued at the seams. They're so, so heavy.

Seungcheol starts to say something else, but his voice is muffled and echoey, like he's standing at the end of a very long tunnel. Chan strains his ears to hear, but it's no use, and with a sinking feeling he realises that he's falling asleep.

The glimmer of hope that insists he might wake up home is drowned out by the worry that he'll still be here when he opens his eyes again.

The fear pulls at his mind until he manages to open his eyes slightly. The stars glimmer at him reassuringly, and his eyes close once more.


	3. INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO FLY

There's an elbow in his side, digging under his ribs. It's uncomfortable, but Chan's too tired to move and push the elbow-owner away. Instead, he tries to make his discomfort known by groaning, hoping that whoever it is will get the message.

For a few seconds, it works.

The elbow is removed, and sleep almost takes him back into its sweet embrace, before his head is suddenly soaked in ice cold water.

He sits up immediately, the water dripping down his neck and soaking into the collar of his t-shirt. It's freezing, enough to raise goosebumps down his arms.

Rubbing at his hand eyes, he goes to glare at whoever decided it would be a good idea to wake him up with cold water but stops.

He's not in the field.

For a second, there still seems to be grass beneath him, but it's gone as soon as it appeared, and his heart leaps as he realises that he's in a bedroom that's way too modern to be in the castle.

The joy doesn't last long.

Although the curtains are the same shade of off-white, the carpet equally as stained, sheets of paper littered around the bed, it's not his bedroom. The bedsheets are too dark, the walls are covered in pictures of him smiling with other people - people he doesn't even know, the worn rabbit toy he's had since he was five isn't there.

The happiness he felt when he first woke has completely disappeared. He's not in the castle, and he's not home, so where is he? Though the rational part of his mind had told him not to get his hopes up, he'd still believed that  _maybe_ he'd wake up and it would all have been a bad dream.

He's never had a dream that felt this real.

And even if there was the slightest chance that he was home, just somehow his room had been redesigned, there was something incredibly wrong that couldn't be fixed.

"Channie? Are you okay?" Seungkwan sets the empty glass down, and waves his hand in front of Chan's vacant eyes.

The motion reminds him to move, and his brain kick-starts. He splutters, mouth half a second behind his mind, "Seungkwan?"

Any concern that the older had disappears, and instead he laughs. "Channie, what's up with you today? You're acting strange."

"Nothing." Mutters Chan, mind reeling. He's not at the castle, and he's not home. Is it possible that he's somehow somewhere entirely new?

As much as he doesn't want that to be true, the tone that Seungkwan speaks in shows that they've been friends for a while. A quick scan of the photo wall gives him an idea of how long. Almost half the photos are of them in stupid poses, although in the most recent ones, Hansol has joined their duo.

There's something unsettling about the photos, Chan thinks, looking closer, but his heart plummets as he realises what it is.

In the photos, he looks happy.

It's only a tiny difference, but his smile is wide and genuine, not the fake one he plasters over his face when Mingming asks him if he's okay.

Chan can't remember the last time he smiled properly, yet in the photos it seems to be a regular occurrence.

Seungkwan raises a cynical eyebrow, "I can tell that's a lie because you're a rubbish liar, but I'm going to ignore it since otherwise you'll get annoyed and refuse to go out even though we've been planning this for  _weeks._ "

"Go out?"

It's the wrong thing to say, and Seungkwan's face falls. "You forgot?"

Chan doesn't know how to reply. He didn't  _forget,_ he never knew in the first place. But he can't exactly say that to the older without sounding insane. The short-term memory excuse won't work in this situation, as Seungkwan knows the alternate-him well.

Fortunately, he doesn't have to.

By some strange chance, Hansol bursts into the room, bringing with him noise that disrupts the awkward silence and distracts Seungkwan. The suspense is broken, as Seungkwan turns to face Hansol, grin splitting his face in half and confusion forgotten, and presses a chaste kiss to his cheek.

Chan doesn't react. He'd seen Seungkwan's expression change as he'd looked at Hansol in the castle, and in the pictures that decorated his wall they were standing slightly too close together to be 'just friends'.

Hansol turns away from Seungkwan and grabs Chan's hand, pulling him out of bed in one swift motion. He has a smile on his face that matches Seungkwan's.

It's only when Chan's feet touch the floor that he realises he's wearing shoes. In fact, he notices as he looks at the rest of his body, he's wearing a full outfit. It's modern, but definitely not made for sleeping in, with too many buckles and buttons to be comfortable.

Before he can compare his strange outfit to any of the other clothes strewn on his bedroom floor, he's pulled out of the room and dragged into the lounge.

"You both ready?" asks Hansol, passing Seungkwan what looks like a pair of binoculars. He doesn't reply, not sure what he's supposed to be ready for, but Seungkwan nods.

"I've been ready for weeks!"

Hansol picks up a small notebook and passes it to Chan, who opens it and flicks through, hoping to find some sort of explanation to what they're doing.

He doesn't have to look very hard.

On the first page, in his own handwriting, ' _BEST PLACES TO FIND A SUPERHERO'_ is written.

Underneath is a messy list of place names. Some have been scribbled out, and there's at least five different types of pen used. Notes have been added around the page in three different styles of handwriting: his own and two others that he assumes are Seungkwan's and Hansol's.

Right at the bottom of the page, an street name is written in block capitals and circled multiple times.

He assumes that's where they're heading.

He's never heard of that street before, but that's not the part of the page that's bothering him. Instead the word 'superhero' catches his eye.

A castle is one thing, but a world where superheroes exist seems impossible.

But isn't his whole situation impossible?

Thinking rationally, superheroes definitely aren't the strangest thing about his whole situation.

A quick scan of the other pages in the notebook reveal similar contents to the first page: a compilation of blurry photos (each dated and marked with the location), a list of superhero aliases and powers, small sketches and profiles.

He reads each page as Seungkwan and Hansol collect their equipment, taking in all the information he can. He's just finished the last page when Seungkwan taps him on the shoulder, signifying that they're finally ready to leave, and tucks the book into the pocket of his strange trousers.

They lock the apartment behind them and head down the stairs. It seems to take longer than it should, the spiral endless and repetitive, descending into the ground itself. But as Chan looks out of the window he swears they've passed a hundred times already, they haven't even reached the ground floor yet.

It's not the most impossible thing, but it doesn't seem right.

Where the other changes seemed natural, like he'd never been anywhere except here, the never-ending staircase seems disjointed and rough. It doesn't quite fit in the otherwise perfect world.

Almost as soon as he thinks this, Hansol turns and opens a door he hasn't noticed before. Following the two men through it, he steps into a reception and then into the streets.

Although from the window he could have sworn they were silent and abandoned, the streets are busy with city night-life. Cars speed past, music blaring, and giant neon signs illuminate the ground with flickering colours.

"Chan? You coming?" Chan turns to see Hansol about to turn into an alleyway, gesturing for him to join them. As he walks towards them, the streetlights seem to flicker.

After rejoining Seungkwan and Hansol, he follows them without distraction. Getting lost in an unfamiliar city that isn't even real wouldn't be great, and Chan has no idea where he's going.

It's almost twenty minutes after when they started walking that they stop, checking the street name to a crumpled piece of paper.

It's the one circled in Chan's notebook.

If they've come to look for superheroes, this is the right place.

"How do we get to the roof?" Seungkwan asks, and although he's pulled his coat over his mouth, his grin is evident in this voice.

Hansol rubs his hands together, slowly turning in a circle.

"What if we used the fire escape?" Chan's fingers only seem to shake as he points to the ladder, as if only just noticing the cold air.

Seungkwan raises his hand for a hi-five, "How did we not see that? Good thing you did decide to come, I was worried that you'd back out!"

Whatever the implication of his words was goes straight over Chan's head, as he tugs on the rungs, checking they're secure. The cold metal stings his exposed hands, but it's not painful. He pulls himself up, and starts climbing.

The building is surprisingly tall, but it doesn't take him long to reach the top. Silently, he thanks that he's never been scared of heights. The fall from the roof is long and dizzying. Beside him, Hansol is setting up some sort of device as Seungkwan pulls himself over the edge, breath like mist in the air.

"What do we do now?" His voice is clearer this high up, the sounds of the city barely audible beneath them.

Seungkwan stands up, pulling his coat around him, "We wait. There's nothing else we can do except hope that a superhero heads over here tonight."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we've gotten cold for nothing."

Hansol makes a small sound of disagreement, "Not  _nothing._ The view from up here makes a great photo. I'm going to put it in my photography folder."

"Hansol, the rest of your coursework is badly edited memes. One half-decent photo isn't going to stop you from failing."

The American only shrugs in reply, "Memes are just modern art, Kwannie. My photography teachers just need to open their eyes."

Seungkwan rolls his eyes at this and goes to reply, but stops himself. His eyes focus on something behind Chan and Hansol.

Chan spins to see what's there, but the building beneath his feet seems to shake, rolling in a way that concrete shouldn't. Combined with his movement, he can't keep his balance, and lands hard on the ground.

His palms sting from the gravel, the sharp pain warning him with surprising clarity what he hadn't quite realised.

If he dies here, he dies in his reality as well.

Of course, it might not actually work like that. He might wake up home and never have to think about castles or superheroes ever again, but it's not a theory he wants to test. Not quite yet, not when he hasn't quite given up the hope of just waking up in his own apartment.

Beneath him, the ground has stopped heaving. He looks up to search for Seungkwan and Hansol.

And if the cuts on his hands hadn't reminded him of his mortality, the men in front of him do.

There's five of them, outfits dark enough to blend in with the shadows but entirely unmissable in the very volume of their purpose and determination.

Superheroes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Seungkwan and Hansol, the shock on their faces mirroring the surprise on his own. Seeing them sends a shot of relief through him, although he doesn't quite know why. He's only known them for two days and, as far as he knows, they aren't even real.

"The8!" One of the superheroes calls, his voice angry and yet eerily familiar, "What are you doing! There are civilians here!"

The man who's standing the closest to Chan stiffens and clenches his hands into fists, "I know that now. But from further away they looked suspicious as anything!"

The first man to speak folds his arms, looking just as unimpressed as before, but a different man interjects before he can reply. "He does have a point, Coups. Most civilians don't set up strange equipment on the top of buildings."

The names sound familiar, Chan realises, pulling out his notebook. He flicks through the pages, trying to find a page where he's written something about 'The8' and 'Coups'.

It doesn't take him long.

The page in question is makes with a well worn sticky note, suggesting that this page was one of the most important. And in the middle is a list of names and powers, a small summary at the top of the page, and multiple sketches of what looks like a fancy triangle.

_'Seventeen' ,_ the page reads, ' _is a group of superheroes that frequent the north-east and east centre of the city. Little is known about them, due to the fact they only patrol at night and don't attend public events.'_

Seventeen.

Chan wonders how they got their name, as the list of names definitely isn't that long. There are more blank sections in their table than in any of the others in the book, although a few are filled in.

_The8 - Earthquakes,_ is written, although Chan doubts that 'earthquakes' is the proper name for his power, as well as  _S.Coups - super strength , Hoshi - super speed_ and  _1004 - intangibility._ There are also a few names without powers written by them ( _Woozi, Jun, Shua_ and  _DK)_ and even superpowers with no superhero ( _telepathy_ and  _teleportation)._

With the information he has, he works out that the five in front of him are S.Coups, Hoshi, The8, DK and Woozi.

"What even is that?" Says DK, pointing at the device Hansol has been setting up and dragging Chan out of his thoughts, "It sort of looks like a modified go-pro, but with more wires and the wrong size lens."

Hansol grabs it and hides it behind his body, ears turning pink. The device, now Chan thinks about it, does look awfully like a re-purposed go-pro.

"It's a camera," says Seungkwan when no one else tries to answer. After a brief pause, he answers the question that hadn't even been asked yet, "It's to take footage of superheroes."

There's silence.

Chan desperately hopes that wasn't the wrong thing to say.

The8 turns to face S.Coups as if to say ' _what did I say?'_ and DK takes a step back, also looking at S.Coups, but his gaze is one of worry.

It was the wrong thing to say.

"Are we some sort of zoo animal?" S.Coups' voice is laced with venom.

Seungkwan shrinks away. His hands are shaking, Chan notices. "No!" He protests, "We just wanted to see you! You never do any interviews, and we're huge fans, so we wanted to see more of you."

"Coups-" Hoshi starts, but the leader cuts him off by raising his hand. Signalled by his mostion, Woozi steps forward.

Chan's feet leave the ground.

If feels like he's been picked up by giant invisible hand, squeezing around his stomach, fingers like vices. Below him, the ground gets further away. Somehow, he's floating at least two feet in the air.

As he starts to tip, there's a shout of protest. Looking down, he sees Seungkwan and Hansol, held down by their own invisible hands.

Why's he so much higher up than them?

"How does it feel, witnessing our power first hand?" Chan has to search to find S.Coups, having been tilted to much that he's almost upside down. Beside him, Woozi has both hands held out, the source of the power.

Seungkwan shouts, "Let him go!" but S.Coups ignores him, picking up the go-pro.

The hands holding Chan wobble, and for the first time, he looks down.

He's suspended over the edge of the building.

There's at least twenty storeys beneath him, and then the hard concrete of the pavement. Chan's never been particularly scared of heights, but his stomach heaves as the thought of falling all that way.

At least he'd get to test his death theory.

"How do like it?" Seungcheol's voice is faint from this distance, but the anger is still clear. He holds up the go-pro up, crushing it in the air and letting the prices scatter, "I'm the king of this stupid group."

It clicks.

The words are slightly different, the wrong tone, another meaning, but the voice is exactly the same.

If Seungkwan and Hansol appeared in both dreams, so could anyone else.

"Seungcheol?" He manages to say.

Then it all happens at once.

The rest of the go-pro hits the ground. Seungcheol's face morphs from anger to shock to fear. Woozi's hands drop, his eyes wide.

And Chan falls.

The invisible hands clutching him disappear, and for a second he stays suspended, dangling in mid-air just long enough to see Seungkwan and Hansol sprint to the edge of the building in horror.

Then his stomach drops from inside him, and the air stings his cheeks, pulling at his hair, his face, his clothes.

It takes less than a moment for him to start falling, but it feels like he's been hovering in the second between still and moving for years.

His clothes are pressed up against his body, his undone shoelaces streaming behind him like tiny streamers.

He's tumbling, falling head over heels. It's not like in the movies, where they fall in a straight line, he's spinning, end over end.

The bright lights of the city blur into streaks of colour beside him, their glow staining his vision with long lines of light.

It took him a lifetime to start falling, and an eternity to realise he's not.

The pavement never hits.

He's stopped falling, his limbs heavy against gravity, but there's no pain. No impact. No death.

He opens his eyes.

The pavement is beneath him, about a foot away, but he's not falling towards it. Neither is there the invisible hands from before.

Instinctively, he puts out his hands to steady himself in his strange suspension. And flips himself the right way up.

His head thunders with a mixture of power and blood rush, his veins singing. His fingers feel almost disconnected to the rest of him, throbbing with raw energy.

He's flying.

He can fly.

With little effort, he manages to float upwards, heading towards the top of the building. His head is spinning too much, he can barely think about what he's going to do, let alone how he's flying.

As he rises, he can make out Seungkwan and Hansol leaning over the edge of the building, mouths wide open with shock. Their faces don't change as he becomes level with them, floating over the boundary and onto the building.

Or, slightly above the building.

He can't quite make his feet touch the ground. It's as if they're magnets, an unseen force repelling them whenever he tries to stand.

The Seventeen members are watching him, though their hostility and anger has disappeared. Instead, Seungcheol still looks shocked, with the rest of them looking guilty. Woozi's perhaps more apologetic than the rest, hands still shaking from the use of his power.

"How did you know?" whispers Seungcheol finally, "Did Samuel tell you?"

It doesn't matter that he doesn't know who Samuel is, because Chan's not going to answer Seungcheol anyway. His head is hurting too much to think of an excuse.

It's a different question that catches his attention.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Seungkwan's eyes are still wide, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.

There's something about the tone of his voice that makes Chan's heart ache. "I didn't know myself."

It's almost as if the other didn't hear him, "Do you not trust me?"

"No, I do trust you-"

"I thought we were best friends, Channie. I thought we said we would tell each other everything." His voice hasn't gotten any louder, but his tone has soured. It's the only thing Chan can hear, as if the world's shrunk to only him and Seungkwan.

"Seungkwan, listen, I didn't kno-"

"Seungkwan?" Gone is the anger, replaced by confusion, "You haven't called me Seungkwan since we were kids."

Chan wouldn't know. He hasn't known Seungkwan since they were kids, he's known him for two days. His feet almost touch the ground, his toes just brushing it, and with it comes a wave of fatigue.

He doesn't want to fly, he just wants to go home.

"Channie, you aren't very good at pretending you belong." These words are so different to his last, like Seungkwan's just realised something.

His feet dip again, but this time he does land. It's not elegant, weight crashing back down on him and forcing him to the ground.

Seungkwan looks like he's about to say something else, but Chan isn't listening.

His ears have been filled with water, blocking out all the sound that surrounded him. The rush of blood to this head is deafening, and his veins scream at him, hands aching with raw power.

It's like a weighted blanket's been put over him, making his limbs feel so much heavier.

He's not falling asleep, but it's close enough that when his eyes close, he knows he won't wake up here again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: okay this is plot-based no stupid jokes plz this time
> 
> also me: donate £1 a month to save go-pros everywhere
> 
>  
> 
> SEEING COMMENTS AND KUDOS MAKES ME SO HAPPY THANK YOU SO MUCH


	4. GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM

The rocking wakes him.

Chan knows he didn't fall asleep, there was none of the sudden fatigue he'd felt before, but he definitely wakes up.

The ground tilts again, and he almost thinks he's back at the top of the building with the concrete buckling beneath his feet. But this rocking is calmer. It's almost rhythmic, rolling from one side to the other steadily.

Slowly, he opens his eyes.

There's none of the hope from last time, so there's no disappointment when he realises he isn't home. Instead, it only scares him how used to this he's becoming.

Falling asleep, and waking up somewhere completely new.

He isn't in the castle, or in the city.

He's on a boat.

Chan's in a small dark wood room, lying on the floor next to a huge cannon. Through the gap in the wall, the ocean stretches out as far as he can see, the waves gently rocking the ship.

One of his arms is slung over the cannon, so he guesses he'd fallen asleep whilst working it. His palms are stained black with soot in a way he knows is never going to come out.

Slowly, he stands up.

It's harder than he expected, the rocking unbalancing him, but after a few unsteady steps, he's fine. 

It's hard to see in the dark room, the only light from the tiny holes in the side of the walls, but he can make out the faint outline of a ladder leading onto what he guesses is the main deck of the ship.

He stumbles his way towards it, occasionally catching his foot on the edge of a cannon.

It hurts more than he expected it to.

There's some part of him that embraces the pain, focusing all his thoughts on that and ignoring the haunting sensation of wind tugging at his clothes and hair as he falls down, down, dow-

Stop it, Chan. His thoughts almost seem to have someone else speaking them, shaking his shoulders and telling him to snap out of it. It was a dream. It wasn't real.

He starts climbing the ladder, wincing at the splintering wood.

No matter what he tells himself, it will still feel real.

There's a hatch that he pushes up at the top of the ladder, and as he suspected, the main deck is revealed.

Light streams through, making him screw up his eyes. It's much brighter than the room with the cannons, and the sudden contrast blinds him.

"Chan!" He hears someone say, and a hand is put in front of him. He grabs it, allowing himself to be pulled up. The initial brightness has faded slightly, and he rubs at his eyes, trying to adjust quicker.

"We were wondering where you were." says the owner of the hand, and Chan can finally see enough to make out who it is.

Hansol.

Somehow, it doesn't surprise him.

Around them, he can see other people, all doing various jobs. It's the various hair colours that catch his eye, distinctive bleach blondes and soft pastels.

He recognises them all from the castle.

He's always been good at remembering names and faces, so there's no mistaking Soonyoung fiddling with the sails, Junhui chatting idly to Jisoo, Seokmin's huge grin.

There are two men that he doesn't recognise, though the height of one indicates he's Woozi, that he assumes are Jihoon and Wonwoo.

Quickly counting them, he comes to a total of twelve.

There were ten superheroes under Seventeen, add Hansol and Seungkwan.

Twelve people were mentioned by name at the castle.

What's so special about those twelve?

"Chan?" It takes Hansol's voice to remind him that he was waiting for a reply.

There's no time to think of a realistic excuse, so he tells the truth- or at least a version of it. "I guess I fell asleep."

Hansol's face changes at that, so quickly that Chan almost doesn't notice and can't identify what it was. "You fell asleep?"

The way he asks it suggests there's more meaning than just a simple question, but Chan doesn't quite know how to reply. Instead he just nods.

Hansol looks at him in silence for a few more seconds, before grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the front of the ship. The older gives out a few orders as they walk past, instructing the short one- Jihoon, Chan learns- to set the direction of the ship again, and telling Soonyoung to stop messing around with the sails.

He pauses briefly as they pass Seungkwan, and Chan can't help but be reminded of the pair's relationship in the city. Here, there seems to be something unspoken between them.

They eventually reach the very front of the ship. From where they stand, it narrows into a point, reaching out into the endless blue of the ocean and cutting effortlessly through the waves. Chan has to resist the urge to make a titanic reference.

"Look." Hansol's voice is quiet, and Chan looks.

He looks into a calm ocean that stretches to the horizon. He looks into the clearest sky he's ever seen. He looks into the faint curve of the horizon.

He doesn't ask what he's supposed to be looking for, although he has no idea what it is.

"I just don't understand." Chan turns to face him, but Hansol continues to stare out into the sea. "All the maps said we should have found land at least two weeks ago. But there's nothing here."

It's true. The ocean is endless around them, not a single landform in sight.

"Look over the side of the boat."

Chan does, leaning dangerously. He can just make out the faded lettering of the boat's name- something beginning with S- and stares into the water below it. It's still, impossibly calm and sapphire.

Hansol sighs as Chan comes back up. "Still no fish."

It's not a question, but a statement. He knows that there's no life in the water without being told.

"How long?" It seems like the first time Chan's spoken for ages.

"One week for the fish, three and a half for land." Hansol's voice doesn't shake, but his worry is evident. "We have enough to last us a few more days, but after that..."

His voice trails off. The sentence doesn't really need to be finished, Chan understands anyway.

They're running out of food, and quickly.

"Is there no way to just turn around?"

Hansol snorts, "If it was that easy, I'd have done it already. The compasses are all completely bust, and none of the maps we have seem to know where we are."

Chan doesn't have a reply. He doesn't really know what Hansol wants from him. His ship knowledge is appalling at best, and he has no idea how to work a cannon, read a map, use a compass, or have other skill that might be slightly useful.

He's just there.

But, thinking back the other worlds, he'd never really done anything there either. He'd just followed, and things seemed to happen to him. It should make sense, since he was the dreamer, but Seungcheol and Seungkwan had recognised that he wasn't from there.

They'd recognised that he was asleep in a way that shouldn't be possible.

He was asleep in a way that shouldn't be possible.

They stand in silence for a while longer, staring uselessly into the ocean like that would make fish appear. The sapphire blue doesn't change.

"Captain?" Mingyu's voice broke the quiet, "I've split the last of the bread into thirteen."

Hansol stiffens, the words 'last of' sounding ominous, even to Chan. Then he sighs. "I suppose we should join you."

They walk across the ship quickly, and Chan realises how used to the rocking he's become. He can now only feel it if he really tries. Maybe it's his imagination, but the water definitely didn't seem this still when he first woke up.

The entrance to the dining hall is down a staircase Chan hadn't noticed before, leading off right before the mast. He follows the others down it, letting Mingyu lead the way. There are a lot of doors in the corridor, and he doesn't want to accidentally open the wrong one in an attempt to lead them.

As they reach the end of the corridor, the silence is broken by the voices of several people. Mingyu presses against a large double door, and it opens to reveal a large table with two long benches on either side. As promised, a piece of bread lies in front of each seat.

Hansol takes the seat at the head of the table. It's the only place to sit that isn't a bench, and his bread is slightly larger than all the others. Chan wonders if everyone else notices how uncomfortable he looks at the special treatment. He pauses slightly, not quite sure where to sit, before noticing Jeonghan waving him over.

There's a moment of silence as Hansol sits down, and Chan realises they're all expecting him to speak. He eyes his own piece of bread guiltily, not hungry at all, but knowing it would rude not to eat it.

"So," Hansol's voice shows none of the uncertainty from before. Instead, it's strong and commanding, the type of voice he'd typically expect from the captain of a ship, "How much food is left?"

"We have enough dried fish for tonight and tomorrow. There are biscuits that could last until the end of the week. And-" Mingyu pauses.

"And what?"

"And then that's it." A deathly silence falls over the table as everyone tries to take that in. A bit of fish and a couple of biscuits. That's it.

Hansol nods, like he was expecting it. "We can make that stretch to two weeks. Everyone, split your bread in half. The other half can be eaten tomorrow. The dried fish can last for two days after that, and the biscuits as long as we can."

"What happens after that?" Wonwoo- it must be Wonwoo, as he's the only one that Chan doesn't recognise- speaks up.

"We hope we've reached land or found more fish by then." Hansol nods again, but this time it seems to be directed towards himself. "Jihoon?"

Jihoon shifts in his seat, "I still have no idea where we are, none of the maps show anything like this."

Hansol rubs his forehead, but he doesn't look surprised. "Let's just eat then."

There's a mumble of agreement, and then the conversations start back up. They're quieter than before, the mood disrupted, but there's still laughter. Chan breaks his bread into two pieces, sliding the bigger one into the centre of the table. He picks at the remaining bit, inwardly wincing at how stale it is.

Beside him, Jeonghan looks over. "You not hungry?" He asks, gesturing to the uneaten bread on Chan's plate.

"Not particularly." It's a lie, he's not hungry in the slightest, and Jeonghan seems to know that something is up. He opens his mouth to say something, but is interrupted by a huge crash.

The ship shakes violently. Chan grips onto the table to stop himself falling off the bench and the leftover bread that was neatly stacked topples over.

"What was that?" Someone asks, and Hansol runs out of the room, sprinting up the stairs. Chan follows. From the shouts and sound of feet behind him, he guesses that the others are doing the same thing.

Above deck, the sun has sunk slightly into the horizon, lighting up the ship in soft oranges and pinks. The yellow glow of evening casts a long shadow behind Hansol. The huge warship that was definitely not there before is painted a  brilliant deep red.

They all stare at it. Behind Chan, he can tell that everyone has frozen. Where had it come from? There was no land, there were no fish, but there was a warship? It seemed stupid, impossible.

With a flash of light and high whistle, the impossible ship fired another cannon at them.

"Get to the your places!" Hansol's voice is barely audible over the screams of more cannonballs soaring towards them. The ship rocks violently, waves slamming against the wood. The sound of it seems to break them out of the stunned silence.

Chan turns and climbs down the ladder. He misses one of the rungs,his foot slipping off it and dangling in the air. It's such a tiny motion, but it sends his stomach into free fall. There's nothing beneath his toes, and he's falling, tumbling, spinning round and round in the ai-

"Chan, hurry up!" He looks up to see Minghao waiting to get down the ladder. His expression looks annoyed, but Chan can't miss the way his fingers grip onto the side of the hatch.

He finishes his descent, jumping the last few rungs, and running to the cannon he woke up next to. From the tiny window, he can see the endless blue disrupted by the body of the warship. It's closer that before, close enough that he can make out the tiny people on the upper deck. The sky is streaked with red behind them.

Minghao sits next to him. He's working on his own cannon efficiently, already rolling a cannonball down, ready to fire.

Chan can only stare at his uselessly.

Their ship shudders, the waves beating against it harshly. The cannons fired at them are getting closer. It's practically a miracle that they haven't already been hit.

"The fuse!" It takes him a few seconds to realise that Minghao's talking to him, asking for something to light the cannon with. He looks around desperately.

How can there be nothing useful at all? Surely, there must be something. Chan stands up, scanning the room.

"In the corner, idiot." Minghao's moved onto Chan's own cannon, preparing it to fire. He looks into the corner of the room, where the light can't quite reach, and sure enough, there's what he's looking for. It's some sort of candle fused with technology. Not quite a lighter, but close enough to one that he can work out how to use it.

He grabs it, and crouches by the cannon they first loaded. Minghao's moved onto a third one, and offers no help.

Chan breathes, trying to calm himself.

How hard can it be? He's never fired a cannon in his life, but he obviously has here. He swivels the end towards the warship. Surprisingly, it's not as heavy as he thought.

Narrowing his eyes and trying to line the barrel up as best as possible, he flicks the lighter. There's a short hiss as the fuse burns down, and then the cannon fires.

The kickback hits his shoulder, sending spikes of pain down his arm and collarbone. His arm is in agony, before fading to a dull ache. He pauses, trying not to swear. At home, he'd rest for a few days, trying not to use that arm at all.

But he's not at home.

Instead, he pulls the cannon back, and peers out of the window. For a second, he can't see anything. There's a sinking feeling as he realises that he missed.

"Good shot!" Minghao's breathless, but the joy is still evident, "I'd almost thought you'd forgotten how to aim, for a second there."

Good shot?

He looks again. The cannon ball had taken off part of the front of the warship, and even from this far away he can see the golden beginnings of fires.

He could have sworn he hadn't hit the ship. Thinking about it, his cannonball should have gone straight into the ocean with how low he'd aimed it. It definitely shouldn't have hit the ship at all.

Dazed, he crouches by the second cannon.  It wasn't possible that he secretly had incredible aim. But-

He's reminded of the staircase in the city. The endless stairs and the windows that looked out into grey abandoned streets that didn't exist.

Slowly, he lights the fuse. The hiss was longer this time, sparks flying onto the ground.

There's a flash of light as the cannon fires, a high whistle as the cannonball soars through the air, and the distant crunch of wood shattering.

He looks out of the window. Sure enough, more of the ship had been engulfed with fire, more of the front blown off. It won't be long before the entire thing sinks, the waves already lapping at the ragged wood.

And he looks back to the cannon that he'd aimed straight down into the ocean.

It wasn't possible.

Minghao's hand takes his, and pulls him up. "We did it!" He says, eyes bright, "We sank it with only two shots!"

They'd sank it with two shots that had missed.

"Let's go back up deck." Chan says. He just wants to get out of this room,. He just wants to wake up.

He climbs back up the ladder, Minghao just behind him. It feels like years since he woke up here.

Above deck, the terror the warship caused has completely disappeared. "Chan!" Hansol calls, beckoning him over to the side of the ship, "Chan, look!"

There are fish in the water, thousands of fish, scales glistening in the low evening light. "There's so many of them." He breathes, because there are simply hundreds of them. Enough to feed the entire ship for years.

 

“Look!” Hansol repeats, “And you sunk the warship! It’s a miracle!”

At the mention of the warship, Chan searches for it. Not much is left above the waves, and even that is engulfed in huge flames . The very top of the mast sticks out of the water, but there are no sailors left on deck. There are no sailors in the ocean either. They’ve simply disappeared.

“Hansol...” he starts, not quite sure how to word his question, “Did you see sailors on the warship before it sank?”

Hansol frowns, “Of course I did. How would the ship be sailing if there were no sailors?”

“So where are they now?”

“In the water, or on the de-” Hansol stops talking, looking for sailors that aren’t there. Chan’s shoulder still aches from the cannon, and his head is starting to pound.

“It’s impossible...” whispers the captain, to himself more than anyone else, “I know there were people, I saw them myself.”

Chan’s headache is getting worse by the second. It’s the kind of thumping that rattles his entire body, pressure building up behind his forehead. More painful than any headache he’s had before.

The world seems to bright. Trying to get some relief, he presses his eyes tightly closed.

And falls.

He’s back in the city, tumbling through the open air, but this time he knows he won’t miraculously fly. He’ll hit the ground.

There’s nothing beneath his feet, and he can only imagine the impact of the pavement.

That never comes.

Instead, there’s a yell from beside him, and all of a sudden he’s surrounded by screams.

Slowly, he opens his eyes

Their ship is on fire.

The warship that had definitely sunk is not-sunk. It’s closer than ever, fully intact, and firing more cannonballs at them. Not that they needed to, Hansol’s ship was burning without any aid.

It was like the situation had been reversed.

The deck has huge holes with splintered edges in it, small flames licking at the edges of the sails. The entire thing’s tilting towards the sea, most of the front already submerged.

His headache hadn’t gone away either.

“Chan!” Someone calls, and he turns to see Hansol standing on the last clear bit of decking. He makes his way towards him, trying to avoid the gaping holes in his way.

“What happened?” He asks when he finally reaches the other. There was a sick feeling in his stomach that told him it was all his fault, and the look on Hansol’s face told him that he thought the same thing.

“Chan, what did you do?”

“What do you mean?” He hadn’t done anything to sink the ship. He hadn’t even asked to be here.

Hansol opens his mouth to reply, but looks up suddenly. Chan doesn’t move to see what it is. His head hurts too much, and it’s draining all of his energy. The nagging feeling that something went wrong courses through his veins.

He’s suddenly incredibly tired.

“Wait,” Hansol’s voice seems to be coming from far away, drowned out by the beating of his headache, “Not yet, he still doesn’t kno-”

He can’t tell whether the darkening of his vision his from the incoming night or not, but his limbs are too tired to stand.

He crumples to the ground, letting sleep embrace him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Half the stuff here is probably inaccurate but I don’t have enough mobile data to look it up oh well


	5. THE WITCH'S FLAME

There's grass underneath him.

He's lying down, but not on a mattress. The ground beneath him is soft and muddy, the type that stains your clothes and never comes out. It's damp as well, and cold.

He opens his eyes.

Is he at the castle? He'd fallen asleep on grass there. If he was at the castle he'd at least know he was travelling between three dreams. That would be better than waking up somewhere new each time.

He sits up, grimacing at the stickiness of the mud. His palms sink into the ground slightly, and the side of his t-shirt clings to his side. It's soaked through, and the mud stains his fingertips as he tries to peel the thin fabric away from his skin.

There's something at the back of his mind telling him that these aren't the clothes he was wearing at the castle. They're similarly old-fashioned, but made from a thicker fabric that rubs him when he moves.

He stands up. The mud is  _so_ cold beneath his feet and his heels sink into the marshy ground. It's disgusting, and he knows that the dirt isn't going to come out from between his toes easily.

It'll take three showers to get him clean, at the very least.

He tries to distract himself from the trees in the distance (large fruit trees that definitely wouldn't be found near a castle) by thinking of the shower he can take when he gets home.

The bright artificial light of his bathroom, his summer fruits body wash, the  _warm water_.

Goosebumps prick up on his arms as another gust of chilling wind whips past him.

At least the castle would be warm.

He surprises himself by not being surprised when he turns round and the castle isn't there. Instead, there's a small hut type structure. A small stream runs past the side of it, which explains the dampness of the ground, smoke pours out of the tiny chimney in the thatched roof, and smell of something baking is in the air.

It's definitely not the castle.

The wind blows again, causing his hair to blow into his eyes, stinging his forehead. His muddy shirt is stuck to his side, and he rubs his arms in reaction to the sudden cold, trying to get the friction to cause enough heat. It's only after the action that he realises his mud-stained palms have left streaks of brown down his skin.

He realises he must look like a right mess.

"Chan?"

Chan looks up from his muddy arms, and back to the hut. Leaning out of a hole in the wall- the window, he assumes- is Minghao.

"What are you doing outside?" Calls the Chinese man, pulling the wooden shutters closed, and after a brief pause, throwing open the door.

Chan hurries over to the hut. The warmth from the small fire washes over him immediately, making him shudder with the sudden temperature change. He rubs his arms furiously, not caring about the quickly drying mud. He hadn't realised quite how cold he was.

Minghao shuts the door. "I would have said that you were going to get muddy if you stayed out there much longer," he raises an eyebrow, "but I think I'd have been a bit too late."

Chan doesn't reply. He can't think of a good comeback, and something tells him that Minghao would reply with something even more scathing if he attempted to.

"What were you even doing out there?" another voice says. Chan turns around to see Mingyu taking a small loaf of bread out of the fire.

That's probably what he could smell earlier.

"I can't remember. I think I fell asleep when it was warmer.

When he'd mentioned falling asleep to Hansol on the ship, his face had changed. If his words had a similar effect on Minghao, he was much better at hiding his emotions.

"I suppose it was warm enough to make you feel drowsy." He says, turning away from Chan to pull a few leaves off a plant hanging from the ceiling.

It's the first time that Chan notices the plant, and at the same time he's suddenly aware of the other slightly odd things about the hut.

There are multiple bundles of plants hanging from the ceiling, but it's not until he sees the familiar purple flowers of lavender that he realises they're mostly herbs. Beneath the smell of freshly baked bread, he can just make out their scent.

Little bottles of dried leaves crowd the middle of a wooden table. Small bowls full of half-crushed mixtures are scattered around it, some over turned and spilling onto the surface.

It's chaos, but at the same time organised. Although there are things everywhere, he has no doubt that Minghao knows exactly where everything is. Mingyu, on the other hand, looks like he's simply accepted the mess.

"Here." Minghao thrusts a few sprigs of some sort of herb into his hands, tied with a pink ribbon.

He instinctively raises them to his nose, but before he can smell them, Minghao pushes his hands down. "They're not for smelling, idiot. You put them in your pocket and you won't get a cold."

Chan does as he says, slipping the bundle into a trouser pocket. It's small enough not to stick out of the top, but presses the itchy material into his thigh. He scratches the area, trying to shuffle the herbs into a more comfortable place, but it doesn't work.

"You'll thank me later." Minghao comments. He's turned round, and is gathering a few of the bottles into a small leather pouch. Some of them clink together, but he ignores it.

"What are the bottles for?" Chan knows that Dream-Chan would've known the answer, but he's genuinely curious. Unlike the other dreams he's had, this one seems strangely mundane. Apart from the herbs, that is.

He's expecting a snide comment from Minghao, so it comes as a surprise when the other actually answers him. "They're remedies. Herbs to keep away bad sprits, to heal people, and bring luck."

He picks up a bottle with a purple ribbon around it from the table, "The purple ones are medicine, but the other colours just depend on what looks nice."

"You don't forget what each one does?" Chan asks.

Minghao smiles, placing the bottle back on the table, "I know these plants like the back of my hand. I've never forgotten a single one, and I never will."

Mingyu walks over, placing the bread into the Minghao's bag. It's wrapped in brown paper, but Chan can still see the warmth rising from it. The smell makes his stomach curl in hunger.

"Who's this for?" Asks Minghao, spinning the purple bottle until it's facing the right way round.

"Wonwoo and Soonyoung, remember? It's payment for the ink they gave us, because  _someone,"_ Mingyu glares at Minghao, but it's in a fond way, "spilt the last lot."

"It was an accident." mutters Minghao, but the tone of his voice suggests he already knows he's lost that battle. He pulls the door open, before pausing. "Chan, can you grab that bottle?"

Chan looks down. There are at least twenty bottles on the table.

The confusion on his first must be obvious, as Minghao says "The one I picked up earlier. With the purple ribbon."

It's the only one on the table with that colour ribbon, so he doesn't need to ask any more questions. He picks it up, feeling it's weight in his palm. It's surprisingly heavy, and unlike the other bottles, it has a name inked on the ribbon. Samuel, it reads. He takes it to Minghao.

"You'll have to carry that one," The Chinese man says absently, inspecting the paintwork on the door, "I don't have any more space in my bag." With that, he gestures for Chan to step out of the house, shutting the door behind them.

They make their way down the hill, walking down a path through the fruit trees Chan had seen earlier. A few apples are scattered on the ground, windfall that would be too sour to eat. Most have gone brown and mushy, but a few are bright red against the green grass.

Chan steps forward, and hits a brown one with his foot. Instead of just rolling away, it bursts, covering his foot with sticky juice and rotten apple.

Or, at least, it should have.

When he looks down, the front of his shoes are splattered with chunks of apple. Normally, he would have been thankful for not having to touch the rotten fruit, but he definitely wasn't wearing shoes earlier.

He'd woken up with bare feet, and his toes had sunk into the mud. But now he's wearing shoes and the ground is dry.

It's only then that he notices that the mud he'd been covered in has completely gone.

His shirt is clean, a white that he normally couldn't get even when he bought expensive washing powder. And his arms are spotless, not a single flake of mud left. He'd  _felt_ the mud dry. It just disappearing was impossible. But...

On the ship he'd fired cannonballs accurately. He'd sunk the enemy ship whilst aiming into the sea. Sure, it hadn't lasted long, but it had definitely happened. And it had only changed once Hansol mentioned it to him.

Maybe if no one spoke about his outfit, it would stay like this.

It's a wild and unlikely idea, but he doesn't have the headache that he had on the ship. It's better than nothing.

"Chan? Are you coming or not?"

Minghao is stood at the edge of a small town, eyebrows raised. Chan realises that he'd stopped walking, and runs to catch up. He'd been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn't even realised that they'd reached the village.

They start walking again once Chan gets to Minghao, though at a slower pace. The streets aren't paved, so Chan has no idea where they're meant to be waking, but Minghao navigates effortlessly.

It doesn't seem to be very busy, but every so often a horse passes by, pulling along some sort of carriage. The streets are lined by huts in the same style as Minghao and Mingyu's but a few seem to be selling goods. They pass a bakers, which gives off the delicious scent of baked goods, and a butchers.

Eventually, Minghao turns into a small shop, ringing the bell on the side of the door before entering. Chan follows, not wanting to be left outside alone in the unfamiliar streets.

The inside of the shop is crammed full with paper. Books line the shelves, tiny labels scribbled underneath and little price-tags hanging off each one. In the corner, a stand is covered with bottles of ink in at least fifty different colours.

And standing at the counter is Wonwoo.

He smiles at Chan, taking note of the younger's impressed face. "Rich nobles come for miles for this shop," he says, waving to the stacked shelves, "We sell the highest quality paper and ink in the whole country."

"Wow." Chan says, and he means it. He hadn't expected these kind of items to exist in this dream, when the streets and houses looked so simplistic.

Minghao opens his bag and places the loaf on the counter, along with a tiny bottle full of dried leaves.

Wonwoo picks up the bread, weighing it in his hands, "From Mingyu, I assume?"

The Chinese man nods, "Payment for the ink bottle." Wonwoo looks like he's going to protest, but Minghao interrupts him, "I've tried saying something, but he insists we give you something."

Wonwoo sighs, "I wouldn't expect anything less. Is this for Soonyoung?" He gestures to the tiny bottle.

Minghao looks like he's about to confirm, but a loud noise from the doorway of the shop cuts him off before he can start. They all turn to look at what's made the commotion.

Standing there, bags spilling onto the ground, is Soonyoung.

"I've got the herbs you asked for-" starts Minghao, but something in Soonyoung's face stops him.

Chan notices it too. There's a kind of horror that he hasn't seen before, and panic. The contents of the bag leak onto the shop floor, egg yolk soaking into a stray piece of paper. They were dropped in shock, he realises, and the feeling that something is wrong only grows.

"Minghao." Soonyoung whispers, like they're the only people in the room, "You can't be here."

At the same time, there's a yell from out in the street, and a scream.

Wonwoo's face drops. He pulls Minghao into a room behind the shop, and Soonyoing pushes Chan in as well, slamming the door shut behind them.

"What's going on?" Asks Minghao, confusion written all over his face. He's dropped his bag, Chan realises, and his hands are shaking.

Soonyoung looks behind him as if to check that the door is closed, before whispering, "There's a witch hunter in town."

Minghao's face doesn't change, "What?" He asks, "What's that got to do with anything?"

"You don't understand," Soonyoung shakes his head, and glances at the door again, "Someone told him you were a witch."

"But that's ridiculous!" Minghao protests, "I'm not a witch! I've never hurt anyone, why would they suspect me?"

Wonwoo opens a door at the back of the cupboard that Chan hadn't noticed before. He sticks his head out, checking to see what's behind it. "That doesn't matter." He says, "They're out for blood. They won't stop until you're proven a witch, even if they need to make up evidence."

"The herbs, Minghao." Says Soonyoung, "They'll say the medicine in witchcraft, that you're working with the devil."

Minghao looks like he's about to say something, but a faint knocking interrupts him.

"They're here." Whispers Soonyoung. His face is pale and his eyes are lined with red, like he's about to cry, "You've got to run."

"Run?" Minghao says, "Run where?"

"Go and warn Mingyu," Wonwoo pulls them out through the door and into the alley at the back of the hut. From outside, the angry shouts and knocks seem so much louder. "Find Jeonghan, Seungcheol and Joshua. Stay there for a week or so. We'll send Seungkwan when the hunter leaves."

Minghao nods. His face is drained of colour.

"What about me?" asks Chan. The three turn to face him, almost like they've just remembered he was there.

"Come with me." Minghao grabs his hand, and they start running. The back alley leads onto the street quickly, and before long there are shouts from behind them, as people start to realise who they are. Minghao drops his hand in favour of running faster.

The town seems so much larger than it did when they first entered it. The maze of paths seems so hard to navigate that Chan isn't sure Minghao even knows where they're going. They dodge horses and carriages, push past shoppers, weave through the stalls and shopkeepers.

Behind them, the sound of running feet sounds like thunder.

Tree roots curl on the ground near the apple trees, causing obstacles. Chan leaps over one with surprising grace, but immediately afterwards catches his foot on the ground. He stumbles, but Minghao grabs his arm and pulls him upright.

Heart thumping, he sprints again, ignoring the curses that seem to be getting louder. He can't tell if it's his imagination, but the crowd of people chasing them seems to be growing, even if there's nowhere for more people to be coming from.

Minghao flies towards the door of his hut, hammering on it for a few tense seconds. Almost immediately, Mingyu opens the door. He looks like he's about to ask a question, but Minghao pushes past him, dragging Chan in behind him and slamming the door shut.

Chan doubles over, breathing in short puffs. His lungs feel empty, and he's gone incredibly light-headed.

"What's going on?" Mingyu asks. It's same question that Minghao has asked, what feels like five years ago.

"We've got to go." Minghao's also out of breath, but he's already scooping bottles off the table into a large bag. His face has gone pink, his cheeks rosy with blood flow.

At the door, there's a loud knock. Mingyu goes to open the door, but Chan knocks him out of the way. Whoever's behind the door rattles the handle, before trying to force it open. Chan pushes it shut with all his might. His muscles scream in protest, but he ignores the pain.

"Who are they?" says Mingyu, but he's started to gather things together as well, "What happened?"

"Someone told a witch hunter that I was a witch." Minghao's voice is calm and flat, but Chan can't help but notice that his hands haven't stopped shaking, "We have to run. I'll explain more when we lose them."

The door shakes again, almost breaking off its hinges. Chan barely manages to push it closed, the initial adrenaline beginning to wear off and leave him tired.

There's silence for a second, as Mingyu takes in the information. Then, in a quiet voice, he says "How are we going to get out?" He's stopped packing things away.

Minghao's frantically still rummaging through drawers for anything that might be important, "What do you mean?"

"There's only one way out."

All three of them look to the door. Mingyu's right. The only way out of the hut is through the doors or the windows, but they're surrounded by people. They're trapped.

Just as Chan looks around, taking his weight off the door slightly, there's another attempt to open it. The door swings open violently, slamming into the wall and sending Chan sprawling onto the floor.

Then there's a rush of noise.

People rush into the room, stampeding around him and leaving him no space to stand up. Someone stands on his foot, sending spikes of agony down his leg. It's too noisy to hear what anyone is saying clearly, just shouts and curses.

He attempts to stand, tucking his arms underneath him, but is immediately pushed down. Somehow, people are still coming into the room. It's should be impossible, considering how small the hut is, but the feet around him don't lie.

Then they stop.

He tries to get up again, but almost as soon as he tries, the crowd is exiting the hut. A foot connects with his head, causing his jaw to close painfully. More steps kick his sides, causing the breath to be pushed out of his lungs. He folds himself into a ball to try and avoid them, but it doesn't work.

"Chan."

He opens his eyes. Without him noticing, the room has become empty.

Standing by him, extending a hand, is Mingyu. His lip is split, and he's holding his other arm suspiciously close to his chest, but other than that, he looks fine. Chan doesn't take his hand, pushing himself up on his own.

"Are you okay?" Mingyu asks.

Chan nods, even though there's a pain in his chest that definitely isn't 'okay'. "You?"

Mingyu doesn't reply.

It's only then that Chan notices the absence of Minghao. Around the counters, bottles are spilt, plants pressed into the floor and ribbons muddied under shoes. But Minghao isn't anywhere to be seen.

Mingyu seems to notice him looking. "There were to many of them. I didn't know what to do." His voice is quiet and weak. "I should have tried harder."

"You did everything you could." says Chan. In all truthfulness, he doesn't even know what Mingyu did. He was too busy being trampled on the floor. "Is there nothing we can do now?"

Mingyu looks towards the door. "I think my arm's broken." He says in a small voice, "I can't help him." There's a pause, and the older sharply intakes a breath, "Oh god, he's going to die. They're going to kill him."

"I've got to go after them." Chan's voice doesn't seem like his own. He turns to face the door, chest flaring up in agony, but he ignores it.

He'd nearly died in the dream. He'd almost been killed, and he wouldn't wish that upon anyone. There had to be something he could do.

"They're going to the lake." Mingyu's voice is so quiet that Chan almost doesn't hear it. "Go right and then straight." He looks up, and his eyes are full of an emotion that he can't quite identify. "If you hurry, you might make it."

Chan doesn't need to wait for anything else. He springs out of the door, skidding down the hill and towards the lake. The burning pain in his lungs from when he ran before doesn't bother him. Neither does his chest. All he can focus on is getting to the lake in time.

He vaults over fallen trees, fights his way through an endless tangle of brambles. They pull at his clothes, but he doesn't stop. The lake is just in front of him.

It's the biggest lake he's ever seen.

It looks almost endless, reflecting the blue sky in its calm waters. It's so different to the sea from the ship, so still and tranquil.

And yet there's Minghao, being held down under the water.

He can't be too late, he just can't.

"Stop!" His voice is so loud, even against the chants and jeers of the crowd. The water amplified the sound, sending it echoing through the forest.

Against all expectations, they stop.

Minghao rises to the surface, coughing and spluttering. The crowd stares at Chan, stares at his bruised face, stares at his muddy arms and shirt.

"He is  _not_ a witch!" Chan yells. It sounds weak, even to him, but the crowd mutters among itself.

A single man walks to the front.

The witch hunter.

"What evidence do you have?" He spits out, looking with scorn at Chan, "This man is a witch. He's been using plants to poison these innocent villagers, and communicates with the devil."

The crowd cheers in agreement. They begin to turn back to Minghao, who's retching out water. Chan freezes. There's got to be something he can say, something that he can do to save the Chinese man. He takes a step forward, and the bottle he'd slipped in his pocket rubs against his thigh.

"I have proof!" He yells. The crowd turns back to him, and he takes a deep breath. "He is not the witch. I am!"

The witch hunter looks taken aback, but the villagers seem to accept that immediately. The men holding Minghao drop him into the water, leaving him free to pull himself out.

Chan pulls the bottle out of his pocket, showing it to the crowd. "This is poison!" He shouts, "I was going to pour it into the bread you all eat!"

The crowd mutters, shocked curses rising. The witch hunter steps forward, still looking confused, but the villagers seem to take this as a sign to advance.

They swarm towards him, grabbing his shirt and raising him into the air. Nails rake his arms and legs, and he suddenly realises the flaw in his plan.

He was there to save Minghao, but there's no one there to save him.

He's suddenly dropped, landing in the water. It soaks his clothes immediately, and before he has a chance to register what's happening, his head is being forced under the water.

It's so sudden that the cold shocks him. Hands press at his chest, and the pain from the kicks earlier explodes in agony. He involuntarily gasps, and his lungs fill with water.

All he can see is the blue blue sky above him, and the hands pushing him down. He tries to push back, tries to get to the surface but they're too strong.

It's so cold, and the water stings his cuts. His lungs burn, firey hot against the freezing water.

The hands seem to multiply, and everything gets slightly darker.

Black spots dance in front of his vision, and he struggles more, trying desperately to escape the arms pushing him down.

But he's tired.

He's not strong enough to fight, the fatigue setting in. The black spreads, covering in the beautiful blue sky.

His heart is still beating, but the black encompasses his entire vision.

Maybe...

For the first time, he surrenders to the tiredness in his head, succumbing to it's sweet sleep.


	6. HEART OF IRON

 He doesn't wake up slowly.

He wakes up with all the force he fell asleep with, snapping his head the second he opens his eyes.

It takes more than a few seconds for his heart to stop racing. For his brain to catch up and realise that he's not under water.

That he can breathe.

He tries slow his breaths, stopping himself from hyperventilating. When he shuts his eyes, it feels like he's being held down, the water choking him, filling his lungs. The ghosts of the hands that pushed down on his skin linger, the force still there in his mind no matter how much he tells himself it's not.

He presses his eyes shut, embracing the feeling of inhaling water. He can feel it pouring down his throat.  _It was just a dream,_ he tells himself,  _it's all over now._

He tries to distract himself by looking at his surroundings, trying to immerse himself in working out what this dream seems to about.

It doesn't take him long.

He's in a shop, if counter he's woken up on was anything to go by, and right next to a till. The machinery looks pretty ancient, the numbers stuck on in peeling stickers and small digital screen.

There's a huge window at the front of the shop, displaying the same mechanical bits and pieces that hang off the walls. Various tools are scattered around the floor, and there are grease stains on the counter. The whole place smells metallic, like pressing his nose up against rusty railings.

It's a workshop of some sort, but he can't quite work out what for.

He doesn't recognise what the parts displayed are, and although he's never even attempted to fix something himself, they look incredibly complicated.

"Chan? Are you okay?" The sudden voice makes him jump, his already shaky nerves not helping. "You look a bit pale." Chan turns in his seat to look at who's speaking. He can't help but widen his eyes when he sees who it is.

Wonwoo.

But not Wonwoo, in the sense that it's not the same Wonwoo that he's seen in other dreams.

This Wonwoo has a metal arm, more high-tech than anything Chan's ever seen, and his voice sounds slightly auto tuned. One of his eyes is glowing a soft blue.

Small tubes in his arm shine with same light, pulsing the colour gently. The engineering seems hundreds of years ahead of anything Chan could ever imagine, the metal seamlessly connected with the real skin of Wonwoo's shoulder. And yet, it also seems to be a lower quality. Some of the screws have rusted near their bases, and Chan gets the feeling that with an ideal robot arm, you wouldn't know it was a robot arm.

"Chan?" Wonwoo asks again, his face creasing with concern.

Chan snaps back into reality, trying to stop staring at the older's arm. "I'm fine." He mumbles. He's  _not_ fine, but he can't really explain that he almost drowned without sounding like a lunatic.

Suddenly, he feels more alone than ever before.

"Are you sure?" Wonwoo asks, and Chan realises that he's not looking at his face. He's looking at the top of his head.

"I'm sure." Chan says, even though he's  _not_ sure. He just wants to stop getting asked things. He wants to have some time to think. "Why do you keep asking?"

Wonwoo frowns, looking back to what he was doing before. "It's just that your hair is damp." he says, and Chan's stomach drops.

His hand flies to the top of his head. Sure enough, his hair is soaking wet. The water is dripping down his shirt, and he wonders how he hadn't noticed it himself. Unless-

He looks down at the desk, where he'd been resting his head, and it's completely dry.

He glances at his arms, half expecting to see streaks of dried mud. There's nothing there except a few droplets of water.

The wet hair was from when he was being held under the water, there's no denying that, but how?

Things have happened that don't make sense in the dreams before, but nothing like this.

Nothing's ever travelled through the dreams with him.

He stares at his hand. The water in his hair has left small muddy patterns on his palm, swirling in delicate curls. It's definitely from the lake and not just a shower he's taken in the dream.

"Is there somewhere I can dry my hair?" He doesn't even realise he's speaking until the words have left his mouth.

Wonwoo looks up, startled. "There should be towels in the bathroom." Chan stares at him blankly until he continues, "Take the first left off the corridor in the back."

"Thanks." Chan mutters, standing up. As he makes his way towards the bathroom, his hand is drawn back to his hair, checking that it's still wet. The water disappearing should have been impossible, but so many impossible things have happened that he can't quite discard the thought.

He pushes his fringe off his face, trying to get the wet hair out of his eyes, but it only causes water to run down his cheeks. He can see the murky liquid out of the corner of his eyes, trickling down the bridge of his nose.

It doesn't take him long to find the bathroom. Even if Wonwoo hadn't given him instructions, there's a sign on the door, reading 'BATHROOM' in huge block capitals. Underneath, someone's scribbled 'for employees only'. Chan pauses for a second, before remembering that he was told to go to this bathroom, and judging by the uniform and name tag he's wearing, he is an employee.

He pushes the bathroom door open, locking it behind him. It's a pretty small room, with a small toilet and sink. The door is the only thing in the entire room that isn't a blinding white, and Chan almost has to squint as he enters.

There aren't any cupboards, not even under the sink, but something catches his eye.

There's a towel sitting next to the sink, perfectly folded and pristine white.

It's awfully convenient, and more than a little suspicious, but Chan doesn't see the harm in taking it. He buries his head in the fabric, trying to dry every last bit of water. He doesn't even care that the mud will stain the clean white.

He rubs his scalp until it stings and his ears ring.

He doesn't want to think about water. He doesn't want any reminder of choking on the lake, the weeds grasping his ankles.

There's probably a downside to trying to repress so many memories, but he doesn't really care. That's something he can worry about when he's home.

If he gets home.

He stops moving the towel, letting it hang over his shoulders. His eyes in the mirror seem empty. There are huge dark circles underneath them, which seems ironic.

Two loud cracks disrupt his staring session.

His head whips around to the direction they came from, the front of the shop, and his brain seems a few seconds behind. Because it's only then that he realises that the cracks were gun shots.

He throws open the door, ignoring the small voice in his head that says  _hadn't he locked it behind him_ , and sprints towards the store front. The towel lies discarded on the floor behind him, still spotless.

He doesn't know what he was expecting to find. There were so many flaws in his plan of just running towards the noise, that he supposed he should be relived with what he finds.

Wonwoo's gone.

But there's no one else there. No threatening men with guns. No hostage situation. No gunshot holes.

The shots definitely came from the shop, they were too loud to come from anywhere else, but there's no evidence that anything ever happened.

He makes his way to the display window, wiping away some of the grime and peering out.

People are walking past like there was no noise. The blue sky stretches endlessly above them, as they go on minding their own business. No one even glances at the shop, too absorbed in their phones.

Beside him, the bell chimes. "Are you open?" Junhui asks, looking a bit confused.

Chan jumps, too focused on watching the people passing to notice someone entering. "Yeah." he says, although he doesn't even know what the shop sells. It's something mechanical, obviously, but aside from that he has no idea.

Junhui's eyebrows raise. "Are you sure?" It's the same question that Wonwoo has asked him. It's probably coincidence, but Chan narrows his eyes anyway.

"Why wouldn't I be sure?"

Junhui open his mouth to say something, but he stops himself, eyes focusing on something behind Chan.

"We're closed." Wonwoo steps out from behind him. His face is stony, closed off. Nothing like the man from earlier. He glances at the younger, "Jungchan got it wrong."

Chan shrinks away, shivering. The air in the room has gotten colder. Wonwoo reminds him of something, he feels like he's been in this situation before. The air seems to crackle with tension.

And Jungchan?

He'd definitely been called Chan before, so why start with his full name now?

If anyone else felt the change in temperature, they don't show it. If anything, Junhui relaxes. "As I thought." He pushes the door open again and steps out into the busy street, immediately disappearing into the crowds of people.

Chan rubs his arms, trying to get the goosebumps to go away.

"Why did you say the shop was open?" Wonwoo's voice hasn't lost its steely edge. It's as cold as ice.

"I thought it was." Chan's teeth chatter together embarrassingly, echoing in his head. He can't stop shivering, the air around him freezing.

Wonwoo frowns. But before he can say or do anything, his head snaps up and he gazes out of  the window.

There's a empty silence, before the mechanic finally speaks again. "It's starting." He whispers.

"What's starti-" Chan begins, but Wonwoo grabs his arm and pulls him to the back of the shop. Chan doesn't even have time to protest before he's pushed behind the counter.

He opens his mouth, but the older hushes him urgently. The room has warmed, he realises. The softness in Wonwoo's eyes has returned.

There's a crash, and Chan fights the urge to see what it was. He hadn't heard the bell above the door sound, but there are definitely other people in the store. Their footsteps are loud. There's another crash, this time like metal on metal, and a whir.

Then there is silence.

Silence so loud that Chan's breathing seems like he's screaming. He can't hear the intruder's footsteps anymore, just the sound of his breath echoing in the quiet.

His breath catches in his throat, his heartbeat drumming inside his head.

A hole appears above his head. It's small and round, embedded in the wall and smoking slightly. The scent of smoke fills his nose, but there's no sound.

It's definitely a bullet, the metal glinting from inside the hole but there's no sound. No bang from a gun, no crack of fire, no anything.

The first hole has just been joined by a second when he remembers the gun shots in the bathroom.

He doesn't have time to think about the sounds, as a hand grips his hair, pulling him up from behind the counter. It hurts, his scalp screaming in pain, and he pushes his attacker away. A stabbing pain runs up his arm, but the man lets go of him.

"Chan!" Yells Wonwoo, and Chan ducks. He doesn't know how he knows what the older was going to do, but Wonwoo swings a baseball bat over where his head was. It connects with the man's stomach and he doubles over in pain.

The till beeps, and Chan swings round to face it. A second man is grabbing the notes from inside it. Chan doesn't even think before he moved. He slams the drawer closed on the mans fingers before he can move his hand. There's a crack, and the man pulls his hand away, yelling in pain. There's a single note caught in the metal of the till, but Chan ignores it, pulling the whole machine towards him.

Behind him, Wonwoo shouts. The hairs on his arms rise and the crackle of electricity runs through the air. He almost turns to see if the mechanic is alright, but the man with broken fingers is pointing a gun at him, one hand dangling limply by his side.

He freezes.

The barrel of the gun stares at him like a black unblinking eye.

Then, with reactions he never knew he had, he throws the till at his head. It's too heavy to throw properly, but it still hits the mark. The man drops his gun in surprise, and Chan immediately lunges for it. His fingers close around the hilt.

He jumps back to his feet, extending the weapon out in front of him. His hands shake, and the machinery feels warm under his palms, humming with power. The trigger burns his fingers, searing a mark into his skin.

The man in front of him has come back to his senses. He glares at the gun being pointed at him, but it's playful. He knows that Chan won't shoot.

He takes a step forward, but stops. There's another crash from behind Chan. The man freezes, and for a second he thinks that Wonwoo's managed to the knock out the other man and has come to save him.

The man's face splits into a huge grin.

Chan's stomach plummets, but there's nothing he can do. He can only watch, his hands shaking feebly, as the man turns and sprints out of the shop with his accomplice.

He can't move.

The gun falls from his fingers, it's burning metal too hot for him to hold any longer. His hands still shake. Just a second ago, he could have killed someone. He was about to do it. He was about to pull the trigger, and he would have been a murderer.

Suddenly, there's a hand on his shoulder. He flinches badly, but the scare jump starts his movement. He spins round on the spot, hand held up in defenders, only to see Wonwoo.

Or, most of Wonwoo.

His face is covered in scratches. The eyelid on the mechanical eye is the type of red that'll become a black eye, and parts of his cheeks already look mottled with green.

And his arm is missing.

There are a few wires hanging from the empty socket in Wonwoo's shoulder. Occasionally a spark appears, the crackle of live electricity permeating the air.

"We have to go after them." He whispers, and Chan is taken aback at his voice. It's hoarse and robotic, the velvet deepness now harsh and rough.

"What?" Chan asks, his eyes widening, "Are you crazy? They'll kill us!"

Wonwoo shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. Soonyoung and Samuel's programming is in there."

Chan doesn't know what that means, but the way Wonwoo says it doesn't sound good. He glances at the busy streets through the grimy window. "There's so many people out there, though. How are we going to find them in that crowd?"

The older smiles. It seems misplaced on his bruised face, but he'd full on grinning. He uncurls his palm to reveal a small device, blinking with a soft blue light. There's a tiny screen in the centre, and an even tinier arrow pointing north. "A tracking device." Chan breaths in awe, and Wonwoo nods.

"It's built into my arm." The mechanic looks proud of himself, until the smile drops off his face, "The range isn't too great through. We'll have to leave now."

Chan stares at the machinery nestled in his palm. The arrow wavers, wobbling from north to north-east briefly. The holographic screen flickers.

"We better run then." Chan says, and Wonwoo beams. He throws open the shop's door, the little bell wobbling violently, and makes his way into the throngs of people outside. Chan isn't far behind, but the sheer size of the crowd makes it hard to follow the older.

And outside the shop wasn't exactly what he was expecting.

Through the smeared windows, he could only make out the people and the endless blue sky stretching above them. Now he can see the huge air ships drifting among the clouds, the few people with mechanical parts, the machinery whirring away at the street corners. He can also see the black smoke that pours from chimneys, staining the sides of the buildings a sooty grey.

A man passes that's more robot than human, most of his body glowing with silver and blue light. Chan can't help but stare, the technology light years ahead of anything he's ever seen before.

In front of him, Wonwoo urges him to hurry up, his eyes fixated on the tiny compass in his palm. Chan can't quite drag his eyes away, but the man soon disappears into the crowd. Unable to stare anymore, he turns back to face the mechanic, only to find that's he's gone.

Chan freezes.

He'd been to busy watching the man to notice Wonwoo leaving, and now he has no idea where he's going. The people around him seem to get closer, pressing up against his sides and sweeping him away. He tries to push himself to one side, trying to press himself up against the wall, but it's impossible. There are just too many people. He's about to be dragged away, when someone grabs his arm.

"Where did you go?" Hisses Wonwoo, pulling Chan into an alley way that he swears wasn't there earlier, "I almost lost you!"

Chan is too relieved to speak. His throbbing heart rises to his throat in happiness. He ignores the tiny voice in the back of his head that says that Wonwoo had appeared from nowhere, that the alleyway was just as convenient as the towel.

He doesn't mention the strangeness. Instead, when he can finally choke out words, he asks "Where are they?"

Wonwoo opens his palm, revealing the compass. Its tiny screen is cracked, spiderweb lines running through the arrow. The arrow that points into the alleyway behind them.

Chan's eyes follow the arrow into the gloom, the stained walls suddenly seeming much more menacing. Even the blue sky above them seems like the colour has been sucked out of it.

The compass falls to the ground, as Wonwoo drops. He looks at Chan, eyes cold, and grabs his hand, pulling him down the deserted street. It doesn't take long before the sounds of the crowd fade out, and the overwhelming silence of the walls smothers them.

It's so dark, despite the sunny cloudless sky above them.

They seem to walk for hours, the street endless. Chan can't see the end, and when he glances behind him, he can't see the entrance either. There are only sooty bricks and black smoke.

He runs his finger across one of the walls. It's tougher than he expected, and when he pulls it away, his fingertip is stained black.

"We're here." Wonwoo says, and Chan almost walks into him. He hadn't realised they'd stopped, too busy inspecting his hands. To busy to notice that they'd reached a part of the street where the alleyway broadened out to form a square.

Or maybe it simply hadn't been there a second ago.

From inside the dimly log square, he can just about make out the blue light of Wonwoo's arm. It seems to delicate to be in this rough environment, the colours too soft to fit in with the other blacks and greys.

He breaths out, suddenly aware of how they're out in the open. And how they have no plant whatsoever.

"What do we do now?" He whispers to the mechanic, trying to keep his voice level. Oh, why did he agree to come along? Wonwoo could have handled it by himself. Chan's just useless.

He doesn't want to get Wonwoo's arm back.

It sounds selfish, but true. He just wants to crawl under his covers and hide from the world. Forget the water filling his lungs and the wind tugging at his hair.

He wants to go home.

"I'll cause a distraction," Wonwoo says, his voice just as quiet as Chan's, "You go and grab the arm."

It's a stupid plan. It'll never work, and Chan is just about to tell him that when the mechanic runs into the centre of the square anyway.

"Hey!" He yells, waving his arm like a madman, "Look over here!"

Chan cringes at the line, but the men turn around to face Wonwoo all the same.

"It's the cyborg!" One of them cries, and then there's chaos. Wonwoo pulls out a small firework-type machine and throws it to the ground. Smoke clouds the air, and the crackle of the sparks mask the sound of Chan's footsteps. Not that it's needed. The men are yelling, trying to find Wonwoo and the firework.

The blue light shines like a beacon through the smoke.

It doesn't take him long to find it, abandoned on the ground. One of the panels is open and he pushes it back into place. It looks in relatively good condition, with only a few visible scratches, and he cradles it to his stomach as he makes his way back to the alleyway.

The smoke stings his eyes and makes him cough, tickling his lungs. The back of his throat protests as he coughs again, blindly feeling his way along the walls.

The air clears.

He's standing in the alleyway, the smoke reaching out tendrils behind him, swirling around his feet. He turns, hoping to see Wonwoo.

The crackle of the firework stops.

Chan can just make out the faint outline of the men staggering around. There's a faint blue glow around a figure on the ground.

Wonwoo.

He takes a step forward, choking on the smoke again, but he can't see anything through the thick grey.

"Wonwoo!" He calls, but it's lost among the coughs of the other men.

Then he hears it.

"Run." says Wonwoo, just as a man notices Chan clutching the arm.

Chan doesn't think twice. The guilt in his stomach doesn't outweigh his survival instinct. He sprints through the alleyway, the arm digging into his stomach.

The brick walls blur, and he can't see the exit to the alleyway. If anything, it's getting darker, despite the cloudless sky.

Something deep inside him tells him to keep running, and he does.

But there's still no end.

The alley goes on forever, the soot-stained walls repeating forever.

His lungs start to burn, but he doesn't stop. The sound of footsteps behind him haunt him, the angry yells of the men following him.

He runs.

He trips.

He's flying up into the air, Wonwoo's arm still pressed up against him. The air whips around him, and he's falling falling falling falling falli-

His head hitting the concrete breaks the endless spiral of his thoughts by catapulting him into the empty darkness of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought i posted this already but no, it was just eternally stuck in drafts whoops


	7. THE UNHIDDEN MAGIC

 He hits the ground again.

It's with the same amount of force, and he sprawls out over the floor. It knocks the breath out of his lungs.

He lies there without moving. There's a thumping in his head and the strongest sense of deja vu that he's ever felt. Something damp seeps into his shirt.

He can't feel Wonwoo's arm, even though it should have been digging into his stomach, the fingers twisting into his gut.

He can't hear the empty silence of the alleyway. He can't hear the footsteps of the men chasing, can't smell the putrid smoke.

But he can hear the clinking of china cups, the quiet hum of conversation. The scent of sweet baked goods fills the air, followed by the powerful smell of coffee.

He opens his eyes.

"Chan!" Junhui says, pulling him off the ground, "Are you okay?"

He's definitely not in the alleyway anymore.

Instead, he's in a small coffee shop. Small tables ladened with pastries and cups of tea surround him, and a few of the customers sitting at them are looking at him with concerned eyes. There's a slightly dusty piano sitting in the corner of the room, the ebony colour dark against the pastel theme of the room. Both Jun and him are wearing black aprons with sparkly name tags attached.

At his feet, an overturned cup of coffee soaks into his shoes. The tray it was on lies a few feet away, surrounded by large shards of china. A slice of cake is pressed into the floor. The sponge is damp with coffee, and the cream is smeared into the floor.

"I'm fine," says Chan, staring at the mess, "I just tripped."

He _had_ tripped, except it wasn't in a coffee shop. But there was no sign of the alleyway, or the men. Or Wonwoo.

Junhui raises his eyebrows, like he knows something is off. He meets Chan's eyes, staring into them for a few seconds. It's unnerving.

"Let's get you cleaned up." He finally says, gesturing to the coffee stain on Chan's shirt. He pulls Chan past the mess and through a door behind the counter. They pass Seokmin as they enter, carrying a dustpan and brush.

"Try not to be so clumsy, next time." he says, but there's a huge grin on his face and no malice in his words. He starts sweeping away the broken cups. It seems strange, using a broom when there's still liquid on the ground.

As the door shuts behind them, Chan can just make out that the coffee and cake had disappeared.

He keeps his eyes trained on the door even after it's closed.

"I've got a spare shirt for you to change into," says Junhui, holding out a light blue t-shirt, "It might be a bit big, but it's better than walking around with that huge stain all day."

Chan takes the material, staring at it. "It's mostly hidden by my apron, though. Surely no one will notice."

The older turns, smiling. "You're not seriously thinking of walking around town in an apron? You'll be a laughing stock, Channie."

Town?

He hadn't quite known what to expect from this dream, but he'd at least thought that he'd be working in the coffee shop for a little while. Not being shown around town.

The material on his hands seems to shift colour: from a pearly white to a light silver. It's made out of cotton, not a type of fabric usually prone to colour-changes, but it's not the weirdest thing he's seen today so he ignores it.

"Is there somewhere I can change?" He asks, looking around for a room helpfully labelled 'changing room'.

Unsurprisingly, he can't see one. "On the left." Junhui says, pointing to a white door mostly hidden by shelves.

Chan nods in thanks, before making his way into the tiny changing room and locking the door behind him. It's hardly even a changing room, looking more like a supply cupboard with a bench in the corner and a peeling plastic mirror on the wall.

There's a hook on the wall, and he hangs the shirt off it, narrowing his eyes at the material that currently looks like watered-down buttercups. He shrugs the apron off easily, dropping it onto the floor, and changes his shirt.

Despite the huge coffee stain, he'd rather be wearing his own. Junhui's hangs off his arms, and almost reaches his knees.

He's not even that short. If he didn't know better, he'd say that the fabric had stretched just to spite him.

Taking a glance in the mirror confirms that he looks ridiculous. The shirt has faded to a soft shade of peach, which in itself isn't that bad, but the sleeves are inches longer than they should be.

He bends down to pick up his discarded apron and shirt, frowning at the glittery name tag attached to it. It reads  _'Jungchan'._ His full name, which he never uses. His full name, that somehow everyone in the dreams seems to know.

As he picks up the clothes, his fringe falls into his eyes. He pushes it away absentmindedly, straightening up and folding the clothes over his arm, when something catches his eye in the mirror.

There's something  _off_  about his appearance. Something that just doesn't seem quite right. He hadn't noticed it before, too focused on the ill-fitting shirt, but something is definitely wrong.

He brushes his hand through his hair again, hoping the movement with reveal whatever's odd.

And then he freezes.

By moving his fringe out of his face, he'd revealed his right ear. And although most of his ear was normal, the very tip meets in a point. A point that was most definitely not there before.

He presses his palm against the mirror, spinning round to check whether his left ear is the same. Again, the very top is pointed, and a few centimetres longer than any normal ear.

Any normal  _human_ ear.

He's seen ears like this in pop culture, in the illustrated children's books he'd read as a child, before books were regulated.

They were elf ears.

He wipes his hand over the mirror, just in case the peeling plastic film as morphed the reflection. Nothing changes, except his shirt looks slightly more coral than peach.

The apron has fallen to the floor again, in his rush to get to the mirror. He picks it up, staring at the coffee stain.

Why was this happening? Nothing in any other dream has changed his appearance, nothing has actually affected him.

He raises a hand to his ear, feeling the unfamiliar point. Maybe they'd go away if he ignores them, like the mud stains on his arms and the water in his hair. A voice in the back of his mind tells him that the ears were different, that they wouldn't leave, but he ignores it.

He finally unlocks the door, pushing it closed behind him. Junhui motions for Chan to pass him the stained clothes, and stuffs them into a backpack, before slinging it over his shoulders. The golden bracelets on his wrists clink together at the movement, the metal glittering in the light.

"You ready to leave?" He asks, opening the door back into the coffee shop.

"I guess." He was as ready as he could be, considering he had no idea what the town would be like. As long as it was less chaotic than the street outside of Wonwoo's mechanics, he'd probably be fine.

They leave the coffee shop quickly. The coffee has been completely cleaned up, and Seokmin is serving customers. He doesn't seem to notice them as they make their way past him, too engrossed in delivering cups of coffee.

Jihoon waves them goodbye from behind the counter, dwarfed by the towering stacks of pastries. Chan wonders how he hadn't seen him before, since his brightly coloured hair stands out against the pastel walls.

The door chimes as Junhui opens it. It's a much shriller sound than Wonwoo's, but it sends shivers up his spine nonetheless. He doesn't want to think about Wonwoo, or the men who'd shot at him. Instead, he fixates on the street outside, hoping it'll distract him.

It does.

There isn't a road between the white paving stones. A huge canal stretches between the rows of shops, lined with trees and baskets of flowers. There are no railings barring it, just the occasional wooden bridge. Small boats and canoes make their way down it, the water rippling in their wake.

The streets are almost empty, and yet the shops are bursting with life. Their colourful fronts shine in the sunlight, casting long shadows onto the stones. Birds chirp in the trees, nestled between the rows of pastel bunting, and the faint sound of a bicycle bell rings in the distance.

It's still. It's beautiful.

Yet he can't help but feel like there's something he's missing.

He looks closer.

His left ear twitches slightly, and suddenly he notices the girls swimming in the canal. Their hair is long, spreading out in the water like seaweed, and they splash each other happily, their laughter filling the air. Chan's eyes widen. Light bounces of their tails, sending it sparking onto the walls.

The shop opposite the coffee shop proclaims that it's a  _'Fortune Teller's'._ Even from this distance, he can see the crystal ball in the window, packs of cards with funny pictures on stacked outside.

A boy rides past on a bicycle. There's a basket hanging from the handlebars, and a cat pops its head out. The boy sighs, pushing the cat back down and waving his hand over the basket. The cat's fur seems to glow for a few seconds, before it slumps back into the bag. The boy rides off like nothing happened.

There seems to be something slightly odd about everyone that walks past, sometimes more obvious than others. A petite girl has fragile-looking wings poking through her jumper, a boy has a pair of cat ears perched on the top of his head. A teen that doesn't have an obvious gender's skin shifts from a pearly blue to a soft green.

Suddenly Chan doesn't feel like his pointed ears are out of place.

"Are you done staring?" Jun steps out onto the paving, nimbly dodging a distracted cyclist. He pulls Chan out behind him, and waves to one of the girls in the canal. They giggle and wave back.

Chan drags his eyes away from the strangeness of the street, trying to refocus on Jun. "Where are we going?", he asks.

The older smiles, "Back to the apartment, probably." He takes a few steps forward, before pausing. "Your eyes were huge back there, Channie."

"Really?" Chan says. Sure, he'd been staring, but it was hard not to.

"Yeah." Jun spins round to face the younger, "Kind of strange, considering you see it everyday." Chan's heart rises to his throat. He tries not to look panicked, and waits for him to continue. "Maybe I should get you to lead us to the apartment. You do live there, after all."

The tone of his voice suggests that Jun knows more than he lets on. His words sound slightly condescending, like he knows that Chan's not from the dream but wants to watch him struggle.

Chan doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what he can say. He doesn't know what Jun  _wants_  him to say.

Then Jun grins again. "Just kidding," he says, taking Chan's hand again and pulling him over a bridge, "I wouldn't do that to you. Especially after what Wonwoo said."

"What Wonwoo said?" Chan shakes Jun's hand off, and catches up with older, "What do you mean? What did he say?"

Jun looks surprised at Chan's sudden eagerness. He opens his mouth to reply, eyebrows pinched together, when he darts to the side. Chan immediately almost walks into someone, unused to navigated the streets. He dodges through bikes and walkers, apologising profusely.

The waiter doesn't seem to notice that he's lost Chan, expertly making his way through the crowds of people. He doesn't look back once, until he abruptly stops outside of a small bakery.

"Wait!" Chan calls, trying to catch up, but he doesn't notice, instead entering the shop.

Chan knocks someone off a bicycle, but he can't stop to help them. He apologises, trying not to stare at the huge butterfly wings sprouting from their back, and continues to battle his way towards the bakery.

He makes it to the outside of the shop just as Jun exits.

"I bought pastries!" Says the older, holding up two paper bags.

"What?" Chan says, out of breath. Pastries? It didn't particularly make sense, they worked at a coffee shop that sold pastries, but he didn't refuse the bag that Jun offered him.

They made their way back down the street. Jun, immediately opening his bag and munching on what looked like a golden chelsea bun. The icing glows in the sunlight, projecting gold light through the bag.

Chan opens his own bag.

There's no chelsea bun inside. There's not even a pastry inside.

There's half of a stale bread roll.

He closes the bag. He doesn't particularly want to eat it, the very thought making him feel slightly ill. Maybe it's his imagination, but even the paper seems to smell slightly salty. Beside him, Jun wipes his mouth and crumples the paper bag into a ball. He throws it effortlessly into a shimmering bin.

"It won't be much longer now." He says, turning down a side road that opens out into a housing district. Even the houses seem surreal, with white fences and small balconies under windows. It looks like something out of a picture book. Something so perfect couldn't possible be real.

They walk past the rows of houses, Jun occasionally waving to someone from inside the house or in the garden. Chan can't help but admire his friendliness. He'd never had many friends himself, aside from Mingming. He was just too shy and too awkward to approach people, and tended to push away anyone that got too close.

Just look at what'd happened with his parents.

A child leans over a fence to offer Jun a flower. It's pretty, red petals seeming even brighter in the sunlight. Jun smiles, thanking the child and tucking the flower behind one ear. Chan's eyes immediately focus on the shape of his ears. There's a strange disappointment in his chest when he sees that they aren't pointed.

Waving goodbye, they make their way to a small apartment block, maybe four floors tall. It's painted white, fitting in perfectly with the houses. Two cherry blossom trees stand either side of the huge glass doors in the front of the building.

Inside the building is even nicer. The carpets are plush, and the pastel walls are spotless. Bunches of tulips in glass vases decorate the welcome desk. The lift even works, which is something Chan never thought he'd see.

Eventually, Jun stops outside of a door. The apartment numbered 302. He raises his fist to knock, but pauses. "Don't be nervous," he turns to Chan, looking the younger in the eyes, "Nothing can hurt you here. There's something stopping them."

Chan's mind reels from the information he's just been given.

Them?

Who was  _them_?

Jun had made the words sound like he was telling him something important, like Chan already knew something. The idyllic world outside suddenly seems touch darker. Like a beautiful coat of paint to hide something much darker underneath.

The window at the end of the corridor is shut, but Chan can swear he feels a breeze pick up, sending icy shivers down his arms.

There's suddenly the sensation that something's behind him, like a pair of eyes fixed on his back. He goes to turn round, but something catches at his wrist.

"Don't look." Says Jun, pulling him into the apartment. The door shuts with a click behind them and the room fills with warmth again. Jun pushes him forwards, away from the door and towards the people inside, but Chan can't keep his eyes off the handle.

It would be so easy to open it, to break away from Jun and see what's outside. To look whatever was staring at him in the eyes. He cranes his neck behind him to keep his eyes trained on the door.

Then Jun slaps him.

Chan snaps back to face the older, hand flying to his cheek. He can feel the heat of the injury, and can imagine the red mark left on his face in the shape of a handprint.

Jun looks apologetic. "Sorry," he says, glancing back to the door, "I had to. They tend to have a stronger effect on lower classes, and I had to get your attention somehow."

The sting in his cheek is outweighed by his confusion. Lower class? It didn't sound like a compliment, but Jun has said it like it was completely normal. He was so,  _so_ confused.

And he'd mentioned  _them_ again.

The feeling that the beauty of the world was just a facade grows stronger.

Someone to the side of him holds out a cup of hot chocolate. He looks up to see Jeonghan, the older with an apron wrapped around his waist. Chan shakes his head, it's way too hot outside for warm drinks, but Jeonghan insists. "Drink it," he says, "It'll make you feel better."

Chan still doesn't want it, but he takes the cup anyway. The steam warms his face, his cheek still stinging slightly. He's too scared of Jeonghan to just leave it, so he sips it apprehensively. It's surprisingly good.

Jun collapses onto the chair next to him and gestures for Chan to sit down as well. He does, taking the last free seat. There are people sitting on every surface imaginable, filling the silence with mundane chatter. He can make out Seungkwan's loud voice, and hear laughter.

Everyone in the room is someone he's seen before.

They were there on the boat, there working in the castle.

Chan only wishes he actually knew who they were. Aside from their names, he knows practically nothing about them. And yet they all seem so familiar, like he's met them all before and forgotten. Even the  _spelling_ of their names seems familiar, bringing back the faint smell of metal that seems so unrelated.

He looks around, taking all the faces.

Seungkwan is chatting animatedly to Hansol, who's collapsing from laughter. As Hansol's mouth opens, he can just make out the flash of teeth that seem too sharp, the light bouncing off of them. Seungkwan doesn't immediately seem different, but there are delicate patterns on his arms, just peeking out from beneath his sleeves, that wind and swirl slowly.

Near them, Soonyoung and Seokmin seem to be having some sort of arm wrestling contest, with a bored-looking Wonwoo as a spectator. Soonyoung's hair is swept back, revealing ears that are just as pointed as Chan's, though Seokmin looks no different to the last time he saw him. A book lies open in front of Wonwoo, and every so often, he waves a hand over it. A page lifts itself up and turns.

Mingyu's got a pair of floppy puppy ears hidden in his hair, and Jeonghan has a large pair of feathery wings folded up by his back.

Chan's only about halfway around the room when there's the sound of glass clinking. He turns to face Seungcheol, holding an empty vase and spoon. He waits until the others have quietened down before speaking.

"There's something I've been meaning to tell you," he says, putting the objects he'd used to get their attention down, "and I don't want you to take this too lightly." There's a pause as he stares at Seungkwan accusatorially, "It's about a very serious matter, that involves all of us."

The quiet muttering starts again, as the others start to whisper about what it could possibly be. Jun moves his chair closer to Chan's.

"It's about Samuel." Says Seungcheol.

The room goes silent.

Beside Chan, Jun's fists are clenched. His face is drained of colour, pale as a sheet. There's an atmosphere of waiting, of uncomfortable quiet like the name leaves a bitter tase in their mouth.

No, not a bigger taste.

The expression on their faces looks closer to sadness.

Seungcheol looks Chan in the eye. A cold feeling spreads through his chest, despite the warmth of the hot chocolate.

"Chan." Says the oldest, not breaking eye contact, "Don't forget Samuel."

Chan opens his mouth to speak, but finds that no words come out. He wants to ask who Samuel is, but he can't make his voice work. There's only silence.

From beside him, Jun grabs his hand, squeezing it. "Time's running out, Channie."

Chan wants to ask why it's running out, who Samuel is and why he's so important. But he can't. The familiar feeling of heaviness washes over him, pinning his limbs to the chair. His eyelids begin to flutter.

He doesn't want to fall asleep yet. He wants to stay here, stay in the warmth of a home where nothing can hurt him.

He wants to go to  _his_ home.

"Hurry," Jun's voice is soft and incredibly quiet, like he's speaking from the end of a long tunnel, "Don't forget."

Chan's head slumps to side. He's too tired to hold it up any more, it's too heavy. His eyes close. No matter how much he tries, he can't open them again.

The mug of hot chocolate is balanced on his knee, but the warmth is beginning to become numb.

He can't feel anything, except the struggling to stay awake.

Jun has said time was running out.

But what was time running out for? What was he supposed to do?

The pull of sleep is winning, and his thoughts begin to spiral. Don't forget, he thinks.

But he's too tired.

He stops fighting and surrenders to the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chan, my ray of sunshine, my actual child, i thought you deserved a break.
> 
> i ended up really liking this world even though i put absolutely no planning into it,,,, i just really like the concept i guess
> 
>  
> 
> but also thanks for reading this trash


	8. THE UNIVERSE ON YOUR SIDE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from Ground Control by All Time Low bc its my ultimate space bop

 "Chan! What's your status?"

The voice is crackly, like it's coming from a radio. He can barely understand the words. It's distorted, and in the back of his mind he wonders why the radio would be asking him questions.

He yawns, raising his hands to rub his eyes.

His limbs feel much heavier, and it's not just from the sleep. They seem to move in slow-motion, taking what seems like years to reach his face. He frowns slightly.

His hand bounces back off something directly in front of him.

His eyes fly open. There's glass in front of him, curved like a fishbowl. A small screen flickers at the edge of his vision, bombarding him with information and percentages. He twists around, his body taking minutes to respond to the motion. The heaviness in his limbs suddenly makes sense.

All around him is the endless black expanse of space.

Tiny sparks of light dot the distance, millions of them in delicate swirls. The clouds that hung over Chan's city had always blacked them with their thick blanket, and the light pollution kept the world in a continuous orange glow. But here, its so dark. It's darker than any colour he's ever seen before.

"Chan!" What he'd thought was a radio speaks again, and he realises that it's someone trying to contact him, "What's your status!"

A tiny light in the corner of his helmet lights up whenever the voice speaks. Words appear on the screen next to it with a tiny speaker symbol, declaring the owner of the voice as ' _Kwon Soonyoung_ '.

Chan opens his mouth to speak, when he realises that he doesn't know how to reply. There isn't an obvious button that says push to talk, and nothing on the screen offers any help.

He stares at his hands, hoping that there's something that'll connect him back. The white gloves are completely blank, except for a small button on the side of his finger. Holding his breath, he pushes down with his right thumb.

The button does not connect him.

The button sends a burst of air from his back out into space, propelling him sideways. He spins, unable to control the movement. The world flips, and for the first time he can see a huge white spaceship. He's connected to it by a white cord, but it's getting smaller. He's spinning away.

He attempts to grab onto the cord, trying to stabilise himself, but his hands don't respond quickly enough and he misses spectacularly.

The screen in his helmet flickers, before a huge notification blocks his view of the cord. 'Kwon Soonyoung  _would like to vid-connect,_ ' it says, with two buttons underneath that read  _'accept'_ and  _'decline_ '.

"What?" Chan says, his breath echoing in the quiet of the space suit. The screen didn't reply. "What am I supposed to do? Accept! I want to accept it! Let me talk to him!"

The screen flickers again, before being replaced with Soonyoung's face. Something he said must have worked.

The video quality is grainy, but it's better than nothing. "Chan!" Soonyoung says, and the relief is evident on his face, "What happened? Why didn't you reply?" The older is sat in what looks like a control room, computer screens displaying various bits of data. There's a window in the background that's totally black, conforming that Soonyoung's in the spaceship.

Chan doesn't even bother replying to the questions, too concerned with his own problems. "How do I get back to the ship?" He asks. The feeling that he's going to be left drifting in space is overwhelming.

Soonyoung looks confused, and slightly worried. "What do you mean? Chan, getting back onto the ship should be easy. Are you sure you're okay?"

The darkness seems to press in. He'd never been one for space documentaries, especially when there was too much happing on the ground to look to the stars. "I don't know how to get back- I can't remember- Soonyoung, I don't want to be out here anymore."

"I'll reel you in." Soonyoung doesn't look angry, only slightly confused, "Hold on tight, you'll have to swing yourself into the airlock."

Chan nods and the video call ends, the screen flashing up with  _call ended._  He takes deep breathes, trying to calm himself. In and out.

_In._ Space isn't scary.  _Out._

_In._ Soonyoung is here.  _Out._

_In._ He can't die in a dream.  _Out._

_In._ It's safe.  _Out._

_In-_ But this is probably the most dangerous situation he'd started up in. The others had all seemed at least partly safe- until everything went wrong. Even the perfection of Jun and the coffee shop had been a veil over something much darker. Out in space, there were so many things that could go wrong.

The cord that attaches him to the ship suddenly straightens, pulling him backwards. It sends his forehead dangerously close to the glass helmet, but at least it stops the spinning.

He tries to turn himself to face the cord, stretching out his arms, but it's useless. He can't reach it. His fingers brush against it, but he jut can't turn his body around that far.

The spaceship gets closer and closer, and Soonyoung's words echo in his head.  _Swing yourself into the airlock_. He curses the badly designed suit. There's got to be another way to get inside.

He cranes his neck over his shoulder, trying to work out what the problem is. The angle that he's being towed in at is too steep, and he's moving too quickly to change it. Instead of being pulled straight into the airlock, the cord has tangled in the side of the space ship. He's going to crash if he doesn't do anything about it.

There's only a few seconds before he collides. In a spur of of last moment panic, he manages to flip himself over, wrapping his legs around the cord and swinging his feet towards the ship.

His legs connect with the the metal. It sends a shock through his body, his legs crying out in protest. The tow begins to pull him again, but he pushes off the side, using the momentum of the collision to propel himself towards the airlock.

For one terrifying second, his leg catches on the cord.

But it doesn't matter. There's enough push to send him flying near enough to the airlock, using his arms to swing himself into it.

The doors slide shut behind him, sealing the empty vacuum away. He lies motionless in the air, head spinning and heart pounding. In the background, a female voice counts down, until gravity kicks in again and he crashes to the floor.

He can't move. His limbs are tight with relief, glued to the floor. The blood rushes to his face, his heart rate only just beginning to slow down. Everything seems ten times heavier.

There's an insistent tapping echoing through the airlock. Chan sits up slowly, the ground seeming way too comfortable, looking for the cause of the noise.

Through a thick sheet of glass, Soonyoung is trying to get his attention. He motions the cord, and gestures for Chan to leave the room. The thunder in his head has only just begun to quieten, but the look on the older's face worries him. He fumbles with the clip, but manages to free himself relatively quickly.

As soon as he leaves the airlock, the second set of door sealing behind him, Soonyoung pulls his helmet off.

"What were you thinking?" He says, expertly pulling Chan out of the rest of the spacesuit, "You know we're running low on tools. We only have a few half-decent sets left, and you just left most of them floating in space."

There's something much more panicked under Soonyoung's angry facade. The bite in his words is almost non-existent and his eyes look more worried than anything.

Chan doesn't reply. He doesn't exactly know how he's supposed to. There wasn't a toolbox in his hands when he woke up, and he was more preoccupied with suddenly being in space to notice anything near him.

There are a few lockers in the room that they stand in. It looks surprisingly like a posh school changing room, with benches and hooks in rows. It's only then that Chan notices that all the lockers are open and empty apart from two.

Two lockers, which read  _Kwon Soonyoung_ and  _Lee Jungchan._

The labels are peeling off, the ink faded, but the open lockers have had their names scribbled out in black pen. One catches his eye, where the locker has tipped over and leans against the wall. Instead of being crossed out, the name is circled in bright red.

_Samuel._

That's what he'd been told to remember. And here it was again, the only one different. What was so important about the name Samuel?

Soonyoung opens Chan's locker and passes him a set of white clothes, identical to the ones that he's wearing. Chan gratefully accepts them, pulling them over the grey underclothes from the spacesuit. The material is light and sends shivers down his spine.

He can't quite shake the feeling of irrelevance. Just knowing that there's nothing near the ship for miles and miles is terrifying. That there's only an empty vacuum surrounding them. He hadn't seen any planets when he was outside, only the endless black.

Where were they? For Soonyoung to get annoyed over something as small as losing tools seemed strange. And why were all the other lockers empty and crossed out?

Surely it wasn't just the two of them on the ship?

"Come on. The scheduled meeting with ground control is in a few minutes." Soonyoung slides open a door and leaves the changing room, gesturing for Chan to follow him.

They make their way down the corridors. Chan can only hope that the older knows where they're going, as the identical walls make his head spin. The plain white colour blinds him until he's squinting. Even the lights seem too bright, only emphasising the emptiness.

They pass glass walls that look into laboratories and empty halls with piles of chairs stacked in the corners. Signs at the end of every corridor point in every direction. It's only as they pass a dormitory that Chan notices something is off.

The door is open, and all the beds are neatly made. It could just be protocol, but the wardrobe doors are also flung open, displaying the bare insides. There are no signs that anyone lives in them, no sign of life at all, discounting that every possible door is thrown open.

There's an identical room on the other side of the corridor, down to the haphazard chest of drawers leaning to the side.

He's suddenly aware of everything.

How quiet the halls are, the only sound the hum of the machines and their feet against the floor. That he hasn't seen a single person working in the labs or sitting in the halls.

Even when he'd vid-connected with Soonyoung, the older had been standing in the control room by himself. The computers had been unmanned.

The lockers and beds were proof that there were other people once.

But what had happened?

The crossed out names suddenly seemed ominous. Why were they the only two people left? And why were their names scribbled out? It just didn't make sense.

Soonyoung slides open another door, the sound startling Chan out of his thoughts. They step into a huge room and Soonyoung closes the door behind them, sealing it with a click.

It's the control room from earlier. He recognises the empty darkness from the windows by the door, and the complicated-looking computers lighting up the floor and ceiling. There are chairs fixed to the floor by each computer desk. All empty.

There's another huge window at the front of the room, though by the flickering lights at the corners, Chan assumes that it's also a screen, like the glass in his helmet.

His assumptions are almost immediately confirmed. A message pops up, displaying  _'Ground Control (sector 2-1A) would like to vid-connect'_ across the screen.

"Accept." Says Soonyoung.

The message disappears. The room fills with tension. Instead of seeing Ground Control, the screen only reads  _'connecting_ ', three tiny dots loading directly beneath it.

"Come on," Soonyoung's voice is quiet, but the desperation is easy to hear. His face is creased with lines of worry. It seems so different to how happy he'd been when Chan had seen him before. The person from the bookstore, the person who'd looked at Wonwoo with stars in his eyes didn't seem like the man standing beside him now.

The connecting message doesn't change.

Chan takes Soonyoung's hand. It seems odd, people are usually pulling  _him_ around by the hand, but as the older looks at him, his face is clear of worry for a few seconds. Chan squeezes his hand in reassurance and Soonyoung smiles at him. It's weak and tentative, nothing like the grin that should be there, but it's better than nothing.

There's a crackle from the speakers that snaps both their necks towards the screen.

Bursts of static flutter across the screen, but behind the black and white lines is a pixelated image of Jeonghan. There are huge bags under his eyes, and he looks incredibly tired. Then his face splits into a grin.

"Soonyoung! Channie!" His voice is distorted through the speakers, and the static makes it hard to make out anything other than his face, but he can see them.

The camera swings round to reveal the everyone else, from Mingyu typing away on a computer to Minghao waving around a glowing stick. "It worked!" comes a crackly voice from behind the screen, and they all look up. There's a few seconds of chaos as they drop whatever they're doing to crowd around the camera, all talking at once.

Chan doesn't know why the signal is so bad, or why they're so happy to see them, but the excitement is infectious. He's smiling, as is Soonyoung.

It takes the screen going completely grey and silent to bring them back to reality.

Soonyoung's face drops, and he rushes to a computer system on the left side of the room, frantically pressing buttons and typing in numbers. A low hum fills the room from the speakers.

Then the screen bursts back into life.

He's filled with relief, but all the happiness from earlier has disappeared. The camera on the other side is still crowded, but the faces are all serious.

"We're getting further away." Soonyoung's face is expressionless, but Chan can hear the waver in his voice. As if to agree with his point, the sound system crackles again.

"There's nothing we can do." Seungcheol has matching shadows under his eyes, "The further away you drift, the less we can control. Even the vid-connect is slowly losing signal, you can't expect us to do anything major is we can't even talk to us."

"So you're just going to leave us?"

Seungcheol visibly takes a step back in response to the other's anger. "I didn't say that. I don't  _want_ to leave you, believe me. That's the last thing I want to do." He pauses, swallowing. "But it might be the only option."

"No!" Soonyoung slams his hands down on a computer screen. "You can't just leave us! It's not fair! There's got to be a way!" He glances at Chan, and his eyes harden. "What about Chan? Are you really suggesting that you're going to let him just die out here?"

"Soony-"

"We knew the risks by becoming astronauts, but this-" he throws his arm out, gesturing to the emptiness of the control room, the lack of any other human life, "this was never mentioned as a possibility! This whole mission was a disaster from the beginning!"

The screen flickers, and there's a small commotion on the other side as Wonwoo pushes Seungcheol out of the way. "Soonyoung," he says, and even through the rubbish video quality, the tears in his eyes are easy to see, "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault, I should have never persuaded you to take the mission up, I-"

The screen cuts off, immediately back to showing the distant stars. There's silence. Soonyoung hasn't moved from where he pushed the button to end the connection. He stays motionless, eyes squeezed shut.

Chan doesn't know what to do.

There's so much going on to feel anything other than emptiness, he's numb to the thought of suffocating in space. He might not even still be in the dream when he dies.

The thought slightly scares him, but rationally he knows that the dream has to end after he wakes up.

Doesn't it?

The situations in the dreams had already started when he woke up there, what's to say that they would continue after he left?

Soonyoung turns to face Chan. His face is a blotchy pink and there are tear tracks down his cheeks. He's obviously trying hard not to appear weak in the front of the younger, but his bottom lip wobbles worryingly.

"Is... Is there nothing we can do?" Chan asks tentatively, hoping that the question doesn't set the older off again.

Soonyoung shakes his head. "No. I've tri-" his voice cracks, and he stops to wipe at his eyes, sniffing, "I've tried everything. We're useless this far away, and barely anything works. It's pointless." He wipes his eyes again, this time more forcefully, "There's absolutely nothing that we can do except  _die._ "

"So we die then."

The words surprise Chan even as they come out of his mouth. Soonyoung echoes that, his face creasing in confusion and shock. "What do you mean?"

"Well." Chan swallows, his throat suddenly incredibly dry, "We're gong to die anyway right? Starve or suffocate or whatever else comes first. So we use the remaining resources we have to make one last attempt to get back."

Soonyoung's eyes widen, "Before we run out..."

There's a pause as he stares at Chan. The sound of his mind working is almost audible, running through all the possibilities.

"If we used the fuel..." He mutters to himself, flicking switches on the computer system in front of him before running to a different one and starting to input numbers, "Of course, it could all go horribly wrong but- There's enough oxygen to power it..."

He presses a final button, and statistics appear on the screen, flickering and constantly changing their results. The numbers and figures make no sense to Chan, but Soonyoung finally looks up and there's a huge grin on his face.

"We could do it." He says.

Chan smiles back. It's the first time in this dream that he's seen Soonyoung genuinely happy. "What do we need to do?" He asks, hoping that he can be helpful in some way.

The older glances at the screen and types in a few more numbers, "Try not to talk or breathe too quickly. I'm going to seal off the control room from the rest of the ship to put it on a separate oxygen system, but we won't have long. There should be enough gas left to power us towards Earth for at least some time." He flicks another switch, and the door behind them shuts with a loud click. "I have no idea how far we can travel."

"But it's better than doing nothing." Soonyoung looks up at Chan's words, and nods.

"Strap in." He says.

There are plenty of empty seats to choose from, but Chan takes the one next to Soonyoung's. It's comforting to not be alone, especially if they're going to die.

He waits patiently for the older to stop pushing buttons and setting up the engines, incredibly mindful of the fact that their oxygen is running low. It's constantly at the back of his mind, and he tries to calm himself by focusing on breathing slowly, watching as his chest rises and falls.

"Done." Soonyoung collapses into his chair, wiping his forehead, "I mean, I hope it's done. I could've made an error somewhere and we'll just explode straight away." He pauses, looking at Chan, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I'm sure." It doesn't matter if he dies anyway. He'd almost drowned, but woken up in a different dream before he'd actually died, and something tells him that this situation is exactly the same.

If only it wasn't for the lingering sensation of water filling his lungs, choking on it, the hands pushing him further down and down.

"Okay then. I'll start the engines." Soonyoung secures himself into his seat before flicking a switch. There's a quiet hum, and the statistics on the screen all clear to around the side, leaving the middle of the window visible to navigate from. The computer system in front of Chan starts to light up, showing increasing percentages.

The hum grows louder, droning on on the background. Soonyoung's hands fly across the control board, the speed faster than anything Chan has seen before, "Engines at 100% in 3... 2.. 1..."

There's a roar, and Chan's pressed back in his seat. The stars outside blur into bright lines with their incredible speed, and the sound is deafening.

The force pushes him back, but he manages to turn his head to face Soonyoung. The older is fighting against the pressure to continue pressing buttons, but he's not strong enough.

"What's happening?" He yells, and his voice is barely audible against the noise of the spaceship.

Soonyoun turns to face him. "I can't reach the controls," he yells, "Which means I can't steer!We're going to have to rely on autopilot!"

Autopilot is fine, Chan tries to reassure himself. In fact, it's better than fine. Autopilot can be reliable, maybe even more so than Soonyoung. But the worried look on the older's face does nothing to calm him.

He opens his mouth to try and make Soonyoung feel better.

The words never make it out.

There's a flash of light and a high-pitched whine in the background, digging into his skull like a migraine. Everything is white, too blinding to look at.

It's all over so quickly.

His arms break out in goosebumps, and his head hits the back of the seat. If it had hurt him, he doesn't feel the pain.

He falls asleep just as the control room explodes around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soonyoung is an angsty boi and chan honestly just wants to go home but he's sort of accepting it at this point
> 
> thanks for reading this,,, and please leave a comment bc i want to know what people think of this trash pile


	9. WIND IN THEIR HAIR

He opens his eyes slowly.

There's nothing immediately wrong, no violent awakening. Nothing to echo what had just happened, the split second of absolute agony before-

nothing.

It's quiet and calm, and his head is resting on the window of a car. The glass is pressed up against his cheek, cooling his face, and his cheek vibrates as the vehicle drives over bumps in the road. There's the low hum of an engine and tinny music of a radio in the background.

He's tired.

His eyes are already closing again, like they're super-glued together. His limbs are heavy.

He yawns, rubbing his eyes. He's never felt this tired after waking up before. It's almost as if he's still asleep, stuck in a strange kind of half-awake dream.

He shifts in his seat, trying to make himself comfortable against the seat-belt that digs into his neck. It's hard, and the back of his head hits the window as they go over a particularly large bump with a large crack.

That wakes him up.

The remnants of sleep are still there, and his body still feels like there's no energy in it at all, but he can keep his eyes open now.

Beside him, Soonyoung sighs in his sleep.

Chan's breath catches in his throat as he see's the older. It could just be the lighting, but it looks almost as if his colour's been drained. His skin is pale and the vibrancy of his hair is dulled. If it wasn't for his occasional breath, he'd pass as a dead body.

The seats suddenly seem claustrophobic.

He climbs over Soonyoung, trying not to look, into the aisle. There are rows of seats on each side of the bus, each containing a sleeping person. He stumbles down the rows, making his way to the front, starting at each person as he goes past.

Seungkwan.

Seokmin.

Junhui.

"Chan? Is that you?" There's a voice from the drivers seat, just as Chan reaches the very front of the vehicle.

"Mingyu." He breathes, glad to see that there's someone else awake. He doesn't quite feel stable enough to be on his own at the moment, too scared of his own thoughts and memories. The older pats the seat next to his, gesturing for Chan to sit there. He does, collapsing onto the soft fabric, his head hitting the head rest.

A passing car honks at them, and in the corner of his eye, Chan sees Mingyu's hands tighten around the steering wheel. He doesn't mention it.

Instead, he stares out of the window screen, watching. The road is mostly empty, with hardly any vehicles on it except for theirs. Nothing seems to be travelling the other way, either, and on either side huge green fields stretch out into the distance. The occasional tree casts long shadows onto the tarmac.

In front of them, the road is completely straight. It wavers slightly in the heat.

Completely quiet and empty.

Just like the bus feels.

The fact that everyone is sleeping has given it a certain eerie quality that he can't quite put his finger on. Even the silence seems slightly off, pressing against him and muffling his other senses. Just like Soonyoung, everything seems slightly dimmed.

Eventually, the quiet gets too much. Eager to get some sort of conversation going, Chan fumbles for small talk. "Where are we going?" he asks, hoping that he doesn't appear stupid.

Mingyu glances at him, frowning, "I thought you knew? You and me were the ones that organised this trip, after all."

Chan looks down, trying to hide the flush from embarrassment in his cheeks, "I forgot."

Mingyu laughs, a loud sound that completely dissolves the awkward atmosphere that was building up, "We're going on the 'longest road trip in the history of ever', as you so eloquently put it."

Chan frowns. A road trip? It doesn't sound like something he'd ever suggest. Cars were pretty rare in his city, with no need to ever get around quickly, and walking had always seemed like the better option. Before this dream, he'd only been in a bus once.

He'd only been about five, travelling for the first time with his family. He'd been so excited. It was all that he could think about for days, his mind fixating on the concept. His imagination had gone wild, and he'd even dreamed of buses soaring through the sky whilst he waved at the awe-struck people on the ground below. He could still remember the disappointment when he had gotten travel sickness almost immediately.

The queasy turning of his stomach was only a faint memory now, almost seeming like a lifetime ago. Now he can't even remember the last time he spoke to his parents.

He doesn't know how to reply to Mingyu, so only nods. The older seems to take this as an invitation to keep talking, continuing his statement from earlier.

"You said that you wanted to see somewhere new," he says, glancing at Chan again and smiling, "You said that you were bored of the same old city, and that you wanted to get away from it."

"I felt trapped." The words come out of his mouth without him thinking about them. For a second, he thinks that he's instinctively lying to make himself look less forgetful. But as soon as he says them, he can feel the truth in them. He  _had_ felt trapped. He'd wanted to do anything to get out of the city.

"Yeah," Mingyu's eyes don't move from the road ahead, "You said you felt trapped."

Chan shakes his head, trying to get rid of the strange feeling in his gut. The feeling of being starves of freedom, the city walls seeming to mock him.

But he'd never actually felt trapped in a city before.

Until he'd said he had.

Somehow, by saying the words he'd made it come true. Even though it had taken place before he'd woken up, the feelings and memories had remained. They weren't his, he'd never dreamed in this world before, but somehow he remembered them. It didn't seem possible.

Somehow he was becoming part of this dream.

"Chan?" Mingyu asks, and Chan immediately looks at him, eager to stop his mind from continuing down that path of thought. "Can I ask you something personal?"

"Sure."

"Why do you always look so sad?"

Chan frowns. Sad? He never feels particularly sad, so it would be strange for him to look sad all of the time. But then again, he never feels particularly happy. He can't remember the last time he'd laughed. He can't remember the last time he'd  _smiled,_ outside of the dreams. "What do you mean?" He asks carefully.

Mingyu glances at him again, trying to get some information about the emotion behind the question, but Chan's completely straight-faced. He sighs, and begins to explain, "I just don't think I've ever seen you genuinely happy. You seem to look... sort of empty."

Empty.

That was a word to describe it.

He feels empty. Like there's a void inside of him swallowing every emotion he has and spitting out emptiness. And the more he thinks about it, the more he realises it's true. When was the last time he didn't feel numb? The only emotion he'd felt with any strength at all was fear, as he tumbled down off the building and gasped for air underwater.

Mingyu sighs again when he realises that the younger isn't going to reply.

Chan doesn't care though. He turns his head and stares out of the window, deep in thought. Even at the spaceship, he'd felt numb as it had exploded around him. He hadn't been scared at all, even though he was seconds away from dying. Maybe it was because it hadn't taken as long. He'd been held underwater for minutes.

He shifts in his seat, trying to get comfortable, when something catches his eye.

In the grimy wing mirror, he can just about make out his reflection staring back at him. Very slowly, he moves his hand and brushes his hair behind his ear.

It's the same motion he'd done in Jun's coffee shop's changing room, and it reveals exactly the same thing.

His ears are slightly pointed at the end.

He blinks, and moves closer to the mirror, hoping that it was just a spiderweb distorting the image. He holds his hair up behind his ear, trying to make sure that it's not just his imagination. But he doesn't even need to pretend, as his normal  _human_ ear is back, like it never changed in the first place.

He saw the point, no matter how much he pretended there was no denying that. And it definitely wasn't the strangest thing that he'd seen appearing in multiple dreams.

There was just something unsettling about it.

The way it had disappeared whilst he was looking at it- whilst he was  _concentrating_  on it- hadn't happened before. It was almost like it had never been there at all.

"You okay?" Mingyu asks, his voice tentative. Chan's silence earlier had created an awkward silence between them.

Chan shifted to face him, not wanting to look at the mirror any longer. "I'm fine," he replies. He must have looked strange, frantically inspecting his ear in what reflection he could make out through the grime, "I just though I saw something."

He expects Mingyu to nod, to brush it off like he's done to every other slightly odd thing Chan has said. Instead, the older's hands tighten around the steering wheel, his face draining of colour.

"So it's already begun." His voice is quiet, almost a whisper.

Chan frowns. What has begun? What did the reoccurring images between dreams have to do with Mingyu? He's about to voice his question when Mingyu speaks again.

"You must be quite far along then." He isn't speaking to Chan, but muttering to himself, "Maybe in the fourth or fifth."

"Fourth or fifth what?" Chan asks, and Mingyu jumps, almost as if he'd forgotten the younger was sitting beside him despite speaking to him less than twenty seconds ago.

"Have you forgotten?" Mingyu's eyes bore into his. They're so dark than Chan can barely hear the question, entrances by the stare of the older man. There was something different about him here that he hadn't seen with Minghao. Maybe it was worry in his eyes, the concern written all over his face.

"Forgotten what?" He manages to choke out.

One of Mingyu's hands leaves the steering wheel and grips Chan's, hard enough to leave bruises, "Samuel."

His fingers dig into the younger's hand even further, and Chan tries to pull away. "I remember the name!" Mingyu doesn't look away, and doesn't let go. "Let go! I said I remember!"

"Don't forget," His eyes are incredibly dark, a deep brown bordering on black. They'd been so warm before but now they were cold and unforgiving, "You mustn't forget him, Jungchan." His gaze sends goosebumps up Chan's arms. The younger can't help but shiver, his attempts to pull away becoming more and more frantic.

Mingyu lets go.

Chan immediately cradles his hand against his chest. There are red fingerprint shaped marks tattooed onto his skin from the force, a crimson shade that will eventually fade to mottled greens, yellows and browns.

His mind races, trying to take in all that the older had said. He'd used his full name for one thing, a name that no one outside his family knew and that he hadn't used Jun years. A name that kept reappearing in the dreams.

Along with the name 'Samuel'.

What did it mean? Who was Samuel? And why was he so important that he had to be reminded of him in every single dream?

Chan knew the name, but the way that it was said suggested that it was more. There was a meaning behind it that he didn't know, a meaning that was incredibly important. But what was it, and how would he find it out?

And then there was the question of what Mingyu has said right before he'd changed. Something about the 'fourth or fifth' and 'already beginning'. What had already begun? Why had Mingyu become so cold after he'd said it?

None of it made sense.

Nothinghad made sense since he'd woken up for the first time at the castle.

In fact, he could trace the confusion right back to when he'd first walked into the Pledis building. 

The realisation comes with a jolt of shock. He hasn't thought about Pledis since the castle, too caught up in other things, but there  _had_ to be a connection. The drugs he'd taken were obviously the cause of the dreams. He'd immediately fallen asleep after taking them, and that was the only out of the ordinary action he'd done for about a year.

He thinks back to the bare room, the white walls seeming more grey in his memories. Is his body still lying on the bed? Have they moved him, or is he slowly rotting away there? It all seems so long ago.

He absentmindedly wipes his forehead. It's warm in the bus, much warmer than he'd realised, and he's starting to sweat. His hair sticks to his skin, the layers of his clothes starting to feel constricting.

"Is it just me or is it really warm in here?" He asks, hoping Mingyu doesn't freak out again.

The older thankfully doesn't, frowning instead, "It's not just you. I was just thinking that." He fiddles with a few buttons on the dashboard- obviously not really knowing what each one did. Chan can't blame him, they're not labelled and pretty ambiguous, but he also can't help but think that maybe Mingyu should actually concentrate on driving.

"Maybe you should let me find it." He says, and Mingyu nods in agreement.

Chan peers at the dashboard, easily locating a dial with numbers that could only be relating to temperature. He turns it, and there's an immediate blast of cool air. He sits back in his seat, letting the breeze wash over him.

He definitely hadn't realised how much he was overheating, because the air conditioning is like being in heaven. He even closes his eyes, leaning back onto the headrest, simply embracing the chill.

He can hear Mingyu breathe a sigh of relief next to him as he begins to cool down as well.

But there's something slightly off.

Chan opens his eyes, frowning. They're all in a ancient looking bus, so there's bound to be a slightly strange smell, especially with the air conditioning on, but this is different. It's a contrast to the musty smell of before, and it takes his nose a little while to identify the scent.

The sickly sweet smell of hot chocolate.

It fills the air, the sheer strength of it overpowering everything else. It's so sweet that his head starts to spin. And he knows it isn't just any kind of hot chocolate. It's familiar, sending him back in time to sitting on Jun's sofa, Jeonghan passing him a full cup.

He can almost taste the liquid hitting the back of his throat.

The smell only gets stronger, and he gasps for air. The scent fills his lungs, making him cough with its power. It could just be his imagination, but the road in front of him seems to wobble slightly.

"Chan? You okay?" Mingyu's voice is distant, like it's being spoken from miles away, or he's for cotton wool stuffed in his ears.

Chan doesn't reply. He fumbles for the window, clumsily trying to find a button that will roll it down and let in the fresh air. It seems simple, but his fingers don't seem to listen to him, feeling numb and disconnected from the rest of his body.

He gasps for air again, his lungs empty. He can't breathe. There's nothing stopping him, and he  _knows_ that the air is perfectly fine, but his lungs still don't fill. In the back of his mind, he can feel hands shaking him. Mingyu's face looks distorted, like he's looking through clingfilm.

The hand on him tighten, and although the rational part of his brain tells him it's just Mingyu, he can't quite shake the feeling that he's being held underwater again. The water that filled his lungs, the feeling that he couldn't breathe. The blind panic that takes over his body. He can't breathe, there's nothing there to breathe in, he chokes on the air, gasping.

He throws his arm out to the side, and in some strange stroke of luck, hits the side of the bus. His finger catches on a button. He has no idea what it does, but he's not exactly thinking rationally, so he pulls it.

The window beside him rolls down, and he takes in a huge gasp of fresh air. It's so cold, and he can feel his eyes well up as the tension in his chest finally releases and he takes his first breath in what seems like hours.

"What happened?" Mingyu asks. Chan looks up, taking in his surroundings. The bus has haphazardly pulled over at the side of the road, and Mingyu has abandoned his seat in favour of looking very concerned.

Chan's throat feels incredibly dry. He swallows before replying, "I don't know. I just- It felt like I couldn't breathe." His voice wavers embarrassingly.

"You couldn't breathe?" Mingyu looks doubtful, "I mean, I know what I saw, but that seems a bit extreme."

"I know what happened." Chan's voice is dry, and he feels a bit bad when the older looks slightly put down.

He starts to apologise, but stops mid-word.

Instead of his mouth moving, his eyes widen as he takes in the view from the window he'd just opened. In a contrast from the endlessly stretching road in front of him, in that window and that window only are rolling hills.

Green hills with tiny dots of tulips colouring them. And on the very last hill, in the distance, is a huge castle.

A very familiar castle.

He goes to point it out, leaning closer, when his body suddenly gives up. He falls out of his seat, landing on the bus' scratchy carpet. He wants to push himself up, to see the castle again, but he can't find the energy.

He can only lie uselessly, waiting for his eyes to inevitably close and for him to fall asleep. There's no point fighting it, not when he's been through this so many times already. He knows that struggling won't stop it, or even slow it down.

The carpet digs into his cheek painfully. He squeezes his eyes shut. If anything, he just wants this all to be over with.

His brain's become slightly fuzzy, the cotton wool feeling from earlier haunting him. He can't think clearly, his sleep-addled mind too tired to even form proper words.

His last thought before he blacks out is that despite the overwhelming musty smell of the carpet, the trace of hot chocolate still lingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so tired
> 
>  
> 
> thanks for reading and leaving kudos as always <3


	10. A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

The quiet chime of a bell wakes him up.

It's the type of bell that hangs above a shop door, announcing when someone walks in, and Chan thinks that he's back at Wonwoo's mechanics. His eyes are still blurry enough that he can't make out anything, and for a second he lets himself believe.

The hope doesn't last long.

Although he's sitting in a strangely parallel place, head resting on the counter by an ancient till, this shop definitely doesn't fix robot parts.

Huge bouquets of flowers line the sides of the shop's walls, labels announcing their names, meanings and lifespans plastered onto their boxes. Sunlight streams in through the huge windows, bleaching the paper. A watering can digs into Chan's shin, the water leaking from it staining his jeans. The room smells sickly sweet, almost nauseatingly so. The roses make his head swim with their stench, but he can't help but think that it's still better than hot chocolate.

No matter how huge the differences are, he can't ignore the similarities.

The till next to him has the same peeling letters that were stuck onto Wonwoo's. A note of some sort is trapped between the metal, the value hidden by the closed drawer. He remembers that note. That's the note he shoved in, before going after Wonwoo.

He runs his fingers down it tentatively, half expecting it to disappear before he touched it. The note is still as smooth as it was before. With a shudder, his fingers brush over a huge dent in the side. The sound of the metal connecting with the man's stomach plays in the back of his mind. Then he notices something else.

In the corner of his eye, he can see a pile of ribbons. For tying up the flowers, his mind supplies, but all he can see are the ribbons that Minghao used to decorate his bottles. Even the colours are the same: delicate shades of pink, purple and blue.

But unlike most of the dreams, he's completely alone. The streets outside the shop are deserted, and now that the bell's stopped ringing, the shop is silent.

There's no one there except him.

The realisation sends shivers up his spine. Its been so long since he's been properly alone- but it doesn't feel right. The shop feels  _too_ empty, like there's something missing. The followers seem to stare at him even though they don't heave eyes, and he can almost feel the presence of someone invisible.

He stands up quickly, trying to shake the thoughts from his head, and accidentally knocks over the watering can. It spills to the floor, creating a huge puddle that soaks through his shoes.

Or it would, if he was wearing shoes.

His feet are completely bare, and covered with mud. The water around him starts to turn a murky brown as it washes off slowly. He stares at his exposed toes like he's never seen them before.

There's obviously a connection between his bare feet and another dream, it's too random and sudden to be otherwise, but it takes him a while to place it.

He wriggles his toes, watching as themed swirls away. The puddle grows as more water washes out of the watering can, and Chan is suddenly very glad that the floor is tiled instead of carpeted. He bends down and sets the can down on the desk. There's still a little water in it, but most of it is on the floor.

It doesn't matter.

He looks up, checking the streets outside again, just to make sure that no one is outside. He doesn't know what he expected, but still can't help feeling disappointed when the streets are still empty.

Sunlight filters through the huge windows and glistens on the puddle of water. He can just about make out the individual beams through the way they fall, lighting up the petals that have fallen to the floor.

They're all recent, he notices. Every single fallen petal is fresh.

He can't have been alone for long.

He takes a step forward, treading carefully to avoid slipping on the wet floor. Immediately, the sun dazzles his eyes. He puts his hand on his face, squinting.

It all feels very surreal.

It all feels like he could wake up at any second. If he concentrates, he can feel the bed sheets pressing against his skin.

He's so close to waking up.

The writing on the windows is huge and in bright green letters. They're mirrored from his perspective inside the store, but he can just about make out what they say.

_Jeonghan's flower shop._

It's uninventive, and even the phone number and email address printed underneath seem to echo the same blandness.

The letters cast a shadow on the tiles from where they block out the sunlight. As Chan steps forward, they shine onto his feet and trousers, distorted and unreadable.

He pulls the handle of the door.

Nothing happens.

He can't open it, no matter how much he tries. The door doesn't even open a slightest bit. It's locked.

He can't get out of the shop.

The streets seem to mock him, and the feeling that someone's watching him is back. The flowers seem to laugh at him, but the silence of the shop only amplifies, getting louder and louder as he feels more and more alone.

What's he supposed to do?

He's never been in this situation before. Usually he just stayed still and waited until everything started to happen around him, and then he'd fall asleep. But now there was nothing. No way out, nothing to do.

Except wait.

Hoping that something will happen. He doesn't want to be trapped in the shop any longer than he has to be, the aroma of the flowers making his head pound with their sweet scent.

He makes his way back to the seat.

As he sits down, he realises that the watering can is on the floor again. It's moved from where he put it on the desk, and the puddle has completely disappeared.

No, not disappeared.

He looks closer. The watering can is full, a drip from the spout hitting the floor every so often. The can and the water have gone back to where they were before he knocked it over.

It's reset.

He can make out his reflection in the water, his own tired eyes staring back at him. There are dark bags on his cheeks. He looks incredibly tired, considering all he's done is sleep.

It's through the reflection that he sees the figure behind him.

He's too tired to jump, or even be the slightest bit scared. Instead, he identifies the man as Jeonghan.

The wait is over.

"How long have you been here?" Jeonghan asks, pulling out a chair that Chan swears wasn't there a minute ago and sitting next to him.

"Long enough." Chan replies.

"You look tired."

"I am tired."

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow. His eyes bore into Chan's, and the younger shivers. Jeonghan gives him a strange feeling. Like knows all his secrets just by saying one word. Like he knows the secrets to the universe.

Chan's always has that feeling around the older.

Like beneath the mothering attitude, there's something more.

"We're all tired." Jeonghan's voice is flat. He definitely  _sounds_ tired, and the tone with which he speaks is strange. It sounds like he knows more than he lets on. He sounds like he knows exactly what's causing the dreams and how to make them stop.

Chan opens his mouth to ask him, ignoring how when he moves his head he can feel the ghost of a pillow behind it.

The sound of a bell interrupts him.

Hearing it a second time confirms what he'd though the first time- it's exactly the same one from Wonwoo's mechanic shop. He looks up, half-expecting to see Junhui in some strange parallel.

Jisoo walks in instead.

There are dark smudges beneath his eyes, mirrors of Chan's, but the older doesn't look tired. He beams at Jeonghan, before gently running his fingers over the petals of a nearby carnation. One falls to the floor, dislodged by the movement. He doesn't notice.

"Shua." Jeonghan says, and Chan can tell that he's been forgotten. Jeonghan only has eyes for Jisoo.

Jisoo smiles. It reaches his eyes, and Jeonghan returns it with an equally bright grin of his own. He stands up from his seat and walks over to the other, looking at the flower.

"It's beautiful, isn't it." Jisoo's voice is quiet.

Jeonghan nods. "Beautiful," he agrees, though he's not looking at the flower. He's studying the younger's face with an expression that Chan can't quite place. It seems wistful, almost sad, but his smile hasn't faded.

"Seungcheol would love it." Jisoo's picks it up, twirling the stem between his fingers. Another petal falls to the floor, joining the others. If it continues at this rate, Chan thinks, there'll be no petals left.

But he knows that their conversation isn't actually about the flower.

He can make out the unspoken words, the conversation they're having without actually saying anything. He can see the heartbreak written across Jeonghan's face.

"He would."

Jisoo looks up from the flower, and for a brief second they make eye contact.

Chan doesn't want to move. He doesn't want to make any sort of sound to remind him that he's there, though he doubts that they'd even notice him, to absorbed in each other. Their wordless conversation seems too intimate for him to see, but he can't look away.

"Take it." Jisoo tried to put the flower back into the vase, but Jeonghan blocks his hand, making sure the younger can't leave it.

Jisoo's face is unreadable. He stares at the flower, and his smile slides off his face. "I can't just take it, Hannie."

Jeonghan doesn't back down. "I'm giving it to you," he says, "You have to take it."

Another petal falls to the floor. Chan's breath catches in his throat. He almost doesn't want to breathe in fear of making a sound that'll disturb them.

Jisoo doesn't take it.

The carnation drops to the floor with the petal. It lies in a small puddle of water that's leaked out from the vase. It could be his imagination, but the sweet scent of the room seems to sour slightly as it falls.

"I'm sorry," whispers Jisoo. Chan has to strain his ears to hear him, even in the overwhelming silence of the store.

He doesn't have to strain his ears to hear the sound of Jeonghan's heart shattering.

The bell rings for what seems like hours after the door shuts behind Jisoo. The quiet chime seems to mock the silence from before, like a delicate laugh. Jeonghan doesn't move.

He stays completely still, eyes trained on the fallen flower. It doesn't look half as beautiful as it did before, the water staining the petals brown with mud.

Chan doesn't know what to do.

He doesn't know whether to move and talk to Jeonghan, or to leave him alone with his feelings. He doesn't even know if Jeonghan remembers he's there, or if he's been forgotten. He doesn't know what went on between them, and he doubts he'll ever know.

Their embrace seems strangely familiar, exactly the same as their hug at the castle and yet so different. The unspoken conversations unlike anything he's ever seen before.

"Jeonghan?" He finally says, his voice quiet and tentative.

Jeonghan doesn't turn to face him, but he starts moving, like Chan's voice has reminded him that he needs to breathe. His back shudders, the movement small and almost unnoticeable. It's hard to spot, but in the silence of the shop, it's impossible to miss.

He's crying, Chan realises.

He stands up, leaving his chair and making his way towards the older, hoping that he's able to comfort him in some way. More petals seem to fall off the flowers as he walks past, landing on the floor amongst the petals of Jisoo's pink carnation.

Within a matter of seconds, they're completely covered. Almost like they were never there in the first place.

"Are you okay?" It's a weak question. Of course Jeonghan's not okay, anyone could see that, but Chan has no idea what else to say. His voice is nervous and uncertain, and shakes as he tries to speak. But it makes the older finally looks up.

His face is red and blotchy with tears. It's real crying that isn't pretty or elegant. It's raw, and it echoes his emotions with the same power. He's a mess.

Fat droplets of water roll down his cheeks, and he angrily wipes them away. Again, Chan feels like he's intruding on something he's not supposed to see.

Jeonghan doesn't seem to type to cry. He gives off the air of being untouchable, almost like a marble statue. It doesn't feel right that he's exposing his emotions.

Incredibly slowly, he bends over, picking up the carnation. The colour of the few remaining petals don't seem as bright as before, and Jeonghan holds it like it's fragile, like one wrong move could cause it to shatter.

He inspects it, and despite his tears, his face is completely straight and emotionless. He looks scarily analytical, like he doesn't even realise that he's crying.

Almost like a robot.

Chan stands there awkwardly, unable to do anything except watch.

Jeonghan looks like he's going to put the flower back in the vase. The contrast between the rest of the beautifully blooming flowers and Jisoo's carnation is obvious. It looks ugly and bare amongst the large full petals. Jeonghan stiffens.

Then the flower hits the floor again, in almost the same place that Jisoo dropped it. The very last petal drifts through the air slowly, a second behind the rest of the plant. Jeonghan's eyes are blank and empty. He doesn't break eye contact with Chan as he walks back to his seat.

The tears have stopped falling, and there's no trace that he ever cried in the first place.

The carnation lies broken on the floor. Crushed beneath Jeonghan's feet.

Chan can only simply stare.

All the petals have fallen off the carnation, and as if to echo it, the petals on the rest of the flowers slowly reach the ground, leaving behind ugly bare stems. They reach out, the very least of the coloured ovals slowly falling to the ground.

The white tiles are carpeted with the colours, like a velvet mattress. They build up along the walls, snow drifting against a window in the middle of winter.

He can feel a slight breeze, even though there are no windows or doors open. It sends goosebumps up his arms.

He tries to make his way back to his seat, but his legs won't quite obey. His feet are glued to the ground, the petals swirling around them, blown by an invisible breeze. He's stuck standing there, staring as the crushed carnation disappears beneath a huge pile.

He tries to turn his body to face Jeonghan, and to his surprise, it works. But as son as he tries to take a step towards him, his legs seize up and refuse to move.

It's the sort of thing that would have made him panic a few dreams ago. But now he doesn't even question it,

It wouldn't matter if he could move, anyway. There's only one seat at the desk.

The bell is still ringing from when Jisoo left, impossibly long. It should have stopped minutes ago, but it only seems to get louder. Chan winces. The shrill chords are beginning to hurt his ears.

Jeonghan sniffs again, wiping his eyes. He doesn't acknowledge Chan, or the whirlwind of petals, or the ever-ringing bell. He's too absorbed in his own misery to look up.

Then he takes a deep breath, "Chan." It's barely audible above the rustle of flowers and the bell, so it's practically a miracle that Chan actually hears him.

"Yes?" He says, wincing at the way his voice breaks. It's croaky and rough, like he's just woken up. As his mouth moves, he can almost feel cotton sheets behind his head. He shakes his head to try and get rid of the feeling, but that only makes it worse.

Jeonghan doesn't reply. He simply looks back down at the desk and ignores the younger. But as he moves, the ringing stops and the wind disappears. The petals fall the the ground, the piles they were creating pauses in their growth.

Chan tries to move again, almost cursing out loud when he legs stay firmly planted in the same position. The petals reached his ankles before they stopped, and he can feel them brush his skin whenever he tries to take a step. He forces himself to ignore it and focus on something else, to stop him from getting worried.

But it's hard to think.

The silence is back. It's even more overwhelming than when he was alone. The sound of his breathing is deafening in the quiet, and there's nothing to distract him.

The smell of the flowers has only increased since the petals started to fall off, and it makes his head spin. The air is stuffy and warm, not helped by the rays of sunshine heating his back through the window. It sticks to his exposed arms and face, plastering his hair to his forehead.

He considers asking Jeonghan if there's any air conditioning, before freezing.

The ghost of the scent of hot chocolate fills his brain, the memories of suffocating too fresh in his mind to ignore. He decides to keep his mouth shut. He doesn't want to risk it, not when he doubts Jeonghan would even more to help him.

His legs are beginning to ache. The familiar drowsiness begins to fill his head, causing him to yawn loudly. The floor suddenly looks incredibly comfortable, and his body begins to sway.

"Why don't you lie down?" Jeonghan's voice is honey sweet, and Chan can't resist the temptation. He immediately drops to the floor, the petals cushioning his head like a pillow. They're even sweeter from down there, softly brushing his lips as he breathes.

A faded label catches his eye, illuminated by a single ray of sunshine. The ink is greying and patchy, but it's still legible.

It's the label for the carnations, but it doesn't say that. It doesn't even say the Latin name for carnations.

It says  _'Samuel'_

A petal flutters over his eyelids and he shuts them on reflex. He can't open them again. Even as he tries, it's like they've been superglued shut, it's a waste of effort.

He's going to fall asleep.

But as his mind sinks into darkness, the feeling of petals against his head merges into soft cotton. It's a pillow, and his mind races as to what's happening.

He doesn't get far.

His brain is slow and so, so tired that it's impossible to think.

It's impossible to do anything except sleep.

He falls into the darkness again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this id the point where i try and finish the book by the end of november and start to panic
> 
> I feel like the chapters are decreasing in quality as the fic goes along :(
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading as always tho!!


	11. HE STAYED QUIET

"Chan?"

The voice talking to him is rough and distinctive. It only takes him a matter of seconds to place it, his sleep-addled brain slower than usual.

Jihoon.

He opens his eyes, trying to work out where he is, but there's only darkness. The room he's in is pitch black, impossible to make out anything amongst the dark. Very faintly, he can make out the silhouette of someone next to him.

"Are you awake?" Jihoon's voice is quiet, he's practically whispering. There's a crash in the distance, and Chan suddenly notices how close they are when he feels the older tense up at the noise.

He goes to rub his eyes, but something's constricting his arms, "Yeah." It's uncomfortable, and he's not quite sure where he is or what's happening. It's too dark, and his eyes haven't adjusted yet.

"Good." There's another crash in the distance, and when Jihoon speaks again, his voice is barely audible, "Stay very, very quiet. Don't let them know we're here."

Chan's mind races, trying to come to some sort of conclusion that makes sense. The older's breath is warm by his ear, They're close, skin just touching. It's slightly uncomforable, he's lying on his stomach and Jihoon is as well, but he can't quite figure out why.

His hands are trapped by his sides, and there's something above him as well, preventing him from getting up. He shifts slightly, trying to get into a more comfortable position, and his knee knocks against Jihoon's leg, confirming their proximity.

There's an even louder crash in the background, but this one is much closer. He can make out footsteps in the distance, the doors clicking loudly against the tiled floors.

Someone switches on a light.

The room is suddenly illuminated, but it doesn't make anything clearer.

He's lying underneath some sort of wooden structure, pressed up next to Jihoon. There's hardly any room to move, barely enough space to fit two people, but neither of them are particularly large.

The planks above his head are what obstructed him earlier, and they surround them, blocking out all light except for a narrow strip directly in front of him. He can see Jihoon frantically scanning through the gap, and he frowns, taking in the view himself.

There's a small aisle between their hiding place and what looks like a shelf in a supermarket. The colourful packaging glistens in the bright artificial light, but they're faded and crumpled. They obviously haven't been replaced in a while.

Chan doesn't know exactly how much a dream can differ to the real world, but this seems like a huge contrast to the robot-like workers of supermarkets he'd seem before. Something is strange.

Jihoon's warning echoes in his mind.

_Stay quiet._

What was that all about? Nothing makes sense, but something stops him from asking Jihoon.

There's something very off about the entire situation, something that seems dangerous. There are goosebumps running up his arms that he hadn't noticed before. Something's making the alarm bells in his head ring, and he can't quite work out why.

Next to him, Jihoon's entire body goes rigid.

The footsteps are coming closer.

Chan can just about see them at the end of the aisle, making their way slowly past the wooden structure. The sound of their heels on the floor seems impossibly loud, black soled shoes blocking out his view as they walk past.

They don't stop.

The owner of the shoes turns the corner, and Chan lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He can feel Jihoon relax, the relief coursing through his body. It's only then that he realises how quickly his heart is beating, pounding in his chest.

He doesn't know where the fear came from. There's no logical situation to explain the panic that swept over him, the simple sound of the shows sending his body into lockdown.

His mind had reacted on impulse, memories from the dream acting without his permission.

Something had happened in this dream, somehow  _before_ he'd even started dreaming, that had caused him to panic in that way.

An instinct telling him that he didn't want to be found.

They keep quiet and still until the sound has completely disappeared, and then they finally allow themselves to move. The cramped space under the wood isn't comfortable, and Chan's limbs are already beginning to seize up.

The wood presses into his sides, but he can barely feel the tiles beneath his stomach. They seem soft, more relaxing that the harsh splinters of the planks, but he doesn't want to think about why it's so soft. It feels almost exactly like a mattress.

Jihoon turns to face him, a section of face lit up by the white light. His expression is grave, and his eyes keep flickering back to the aisle, like he doesn't believe that the owner of the shoes has left. Chan can't blame him. Every noise makes him jump slightly, and he keeps imagining the click of shoes in the distance.

As Jihoon moves his head, he can just about see a shop window, the blue sky seeming wrong. The fear hasn't left him yet, and the brightness of the sky seems to mock that. It seems too happy, too  _normal._

"Who was that?" He whispers, quiet enough that only the older can hear him.

Jihoon's eyebrows furrow, like he can't quite believe that Chan doesn't know. He opens his mouth, before closing it again, not able to phrase the answer properly.

It must be a strange question, Chan thinks, considering their situation. He must have known what was happening when he climbed into the hiding place, and Jihoon probably doesn't believe that his memory is that bad.

"I forgot when I fell asleep." He says, like that will prompt the older. In other dreams, they'd reacted strangely when they found that out. Almost as if they knew that he wasn't from there.

As he suspected, as soon as he says that, Jihoon's face changes. He suddenly looks more understanding. "It doesn't matter," he says, "The story is too long and too complicated. All you need to know is that whatever happens, you can't let them find you. We can stay here for ages, as long as we stay quiet. At sun-down, we'll-"

He stops, and narrows his eyes at Chan, before smiling wryly. "It doesn't matter what we do after," he says, the smile not leaving his face, "It's not like you'll be there." He turns back, resting his head on his arm and effectively ending the conversation.

There's a sick feeling in Chan's gut.

It's the first time that someone apart from him has directly addressed his situation. It had been mentioned before, but Jihoon had smiled. It wasn't as late as the others had been. In fact, it was probably more similar to Mingyu's cryptic muttering. They both had the same atmosphere of  _knowing._

But how could they know? How could they realise that he was dreaming? And how did they know that he'd fall asleep and wake up somewhere completely different?

Mingyu had said that Chan was on the fourth or fifth. He hadn't known what that meant at the time, but now that he knows that Mingyu knew he was dreaming... Could he have meant that Chan was on the fourth or fifth dream?

The way he'd spoken made it sound like he was familiar with the idea. He hadn't sounded confused or disbelieving. He'd spoken with the confidence of someone who'd been through it themself.

But that was impossible.

It didn't make sense.

Nothing had made sense since he started dreaming. With every dream, he only gets more and more confused, more and more lost. His mind hurts with the attempts to understand. Why couldn't anyone just be straight with him and tell him what was happening?

Why were they all being so cryptic?

He shakes his head, trying to make the thoughts go away. He doesn't want to figure out why he's here. He just wants to go home.

Back to his apartment, back to his classes and part time jobs, back to his roommate. Back to his normal life, where he'll never have to do anything dangerous again.

Where he can sleep without having to worry about where he'll wake up.

His worries about being unable to pay rent seem so far away, mundane and useless compared to now. The fear he'd felt as the water filled his lungs, the terror and he plummeted to the ground. Even the numbness that keep getting stronger. He'd let himself explode with a spaceship and hadn't even batted an eyelid.

He hadn't felt anything as he'd died.

He turns to Jihoon, determined to distract himself. The thoughts of his absent emotions terrified him more than the prospect of being caught in the hiding place. "Hey, what happened to the others?"

It's a long shot, and something he's been wondering about, but Jihoon's head snaps up incredibly quickly, his eyes narrowed. It takes a second, before Chan realises that he's asked about something sensitive.

He hasn't seen anyone else from a dream yet, but by now there should have been at least be two reoccurring people appearing.

Their absence, along with Jihoon's reaction confirms his suspicions.

Something has happened to them.

"You don't need to know." Jihoon's voice wavers in the middle of his sentence, despite how hard he's trying to keep it stable. His cheeks flush slightly, though in the poor lighting it's hard to see.

It's incredibly suspicious, only only makes Chan even more curious.

"What if I want to know?" he says.

Honestly? He's getting tired of being confused and people holding back information from him. What reason is there that he can't know? He doesn't like being left in the dark. Not when there's not even a proper reason for it.

How much harm could knowing what happened to everyone else do? If anything, it would help to pass the time.

Jihoon grimaces, his eyes flickering to the aisle like he's hoping for a distraction to get out of answering. The supermarket is completely silent. Whatever was making the crashes from before and the owner of the shoes have disappeared, leaving Chan and Jihoon hiding from nothing.

"I don't have to tell you anything." The older says, making eye contact with Chan and trying to stare him down, "This isn't the right place for that discussion. I thought I'd already made that clear."

The atmosphere is cold, his words only make it more awkward. Neither of them want to speak, or break eye contact. Their face off has turned into a battle of stubbornness, and considering there's nothing to interrupt them, it's one that could last a long time.

It was only a matter of time, a combination of being cramped together for too long and their clashing personalities.

Chan has known that they'd eventually oppose each other since the city, when the older had dropped him off the side of the building. The frostiness in their relationship has stayed strong throughout the dreams. It's not particularly Jihoon's fault, since this dream-version of him doesn't know it even happened, but Chan can't quite help holding a slight grudge against him for almost killing him.

The feeling of his stomach dropping, the sensation of falling with no safety nets, the pure terror he'd felt still haunts him. He tries not to dwell on the memories for too long, not wanting to relive the experience.

He eventually looks away, squeezing his eyes shut to try and block out his thoughts. His mind races to find a comeback, something to say that'll distract him.

He's all too aware of Jihoon's eyes trained upon him, but there's nothing to focus on apart from the wind pulling at his hair as he tumbled to the ground-

There's a sharp intake of breath from beside him. Jihoon's staring at the aisle, argument completely forgotten. His eyes don't move, and Chan desperately tries to see what's made the older so panicked.

Something else happens before he can make it out.

As soon as he turns, the lights in the supermarket flicker, casting shadows onto the products and plunging the store into darkness. The windows are too far away to light up the store, and the slither of blue is the only colour left amongst the black.

There's a few seconds where he's been blinded. He desperately tries to listen out for the shoes, relying solely on his ears to know what's happening.

But it remains quiet.

Somehow, the silence is only slightly less terrifying than whoever's looking for them. It seems out of place and wrong, the aisles not meant to be empty. Despite the blue sky being visible, the store feels like it's been lost in time, with no concept of night or day.

With a start, he realises he has no idea how long it's been since he woke up.

He has no idea how long it'll be until he falls asleep again.

Under the cramped wooden structure suddenly seems like a safe haven. The feeling of the walls against his side is more comforting that constricting, and the feeling of Jihoon's side against his is his only reminder that he's not alone.

With the loss of his sight, it's like all his other senses are working extra hard to make up for it.

That's why he first smells it.

The overpowering stench of fresh flowers.

It makes his head ache, even the familiarity of it taking a few seconds to place. And then it's almost like he's back in the flower shop, watching as the plants abandoned their petals onto the hard ground. It's the same smell that makes his heart pound with sympathy for Jeonghan.

He can imagine the humidity, how even his lungs felt sticky with sweat. But despite the confusion and the sickly sweet smell, he could still think about it. Even as he was stuck to the ground, unable to move, he'd managed to remain calm. Unlike-

He stops himself, determined not to slip into that spiral of thought. He buries himself in the scent, no matter how much he wants to gag, and tries to concentrate on it.

But the scent is slightly different.

There's a different smell hidden in it, making it slightly sweeter. It's warm, and almost impossible to identify if he hadn't almost choked to death in it.

Hot chocolate.

He gasps, his eyes flying wide open. He can feel Jihoon's body shift to check if he's alright, but he can't focus on that. All his mind power is focused on taking in air and pushing it out. As long as he keeps breathing he'll be fine.

As long as he keeps breathing he'll be fine.

As long as he keeps breathing he'll be-

The lights suddenly turn back on, and he's blinded by the sudden change. The spotless tiles only seem to reflect it, causing the entire aisle to glow a searing white. As he squints, his eyes burning, he realises that he can breathe completely fine.

The smell has disappeared.

Jihoon looks just as relieved as him that the lights are back on, if not more. His cheeks are slightly pink, and Chan can feel that he's shaking. The initial brightness fades, and their heartbeats begin to slow, their breathing beginning to steady.

Overcome with relief, the contrast of fear and freedom making his head spin, Chan can't help but smiling. The giddy euphoria of being able to breathe hits hard, and Jihoon grins back at him, the same emotions pushing their differences aside.

For the first time in a while, Chan's genuinely smiling, the happiness bubbles up inside him, bursting out. He can't help but laugh, the soft sound filling the quiet aisles.

"We should be quieter," says Jihoon, but his huge grin hasn't faded, and he hiccoughs softly.

Chan nods, trying to calm himself. He lets the excitement fade in silence, the usual numbness returning quickly. "I guess." He mumbles, already missing the brief carefree seconds.

Jihoon looks at him, like he's reading his face, inquisitive eyes trying to work something out. Chan can't be bothered to ask what it is, not wanting to cause another argument. He doubts it's important, and can't bring himself to care about it that much.

The older tilts his head slightly, and something catches Chan's eye. There's a black scribble behind his head on the wooden planks, the marks suddenly visible against the golden wood. He squints, trying to read what it says.

The letters are cramped together and slightly hidden by the shadows, and the ink is smudged slightly, the sharpie bleeding into the wood.

But although it's pretty small, the handwriting is neat and delicate. He doesn't have to try hard to work out what it says.

And after reading the first letter, he can guess what the word is.

_Samuel._

Just like everything else, the name haunts the inside of the hiding place as well, hidden in the darkness. It lingers everywhere he looks, in every single dream he's been in. But what's the importance of the name? Why is Samuel so important?

He's been told not to forget the name so many times, but no one's bothered to tell him why. It's endlessly frustrating, the mystery surrounding it seeming useless and stupid. How hard would it be for someone to just tell him?

But something stops him from asking Jihoon. There's a feeling in his stomach that twists his tongue when he opens his mouth, causing his words to freeze and his mind to forget what he's about to ask. Instead, he stares at the name, hoping it'll disappear. The ink seems to mock him, staying as bold as before.

He wonders how he didn't notice it before. Now he knows it's there, it's all he can see, engraved on the back of his eyelids. He can see it when he closes his eyes, the faint shadow remaining there like a ghost.

He's so busy staring that he doesn't notice that the shoes are back.

And they're standing right in front of their hiding place.

Jihoon's face is pale. The air seems to freeze around them, goosebumps raising on Chan's spine. He can't move, too afraid of being heard. Every breath seems to loud, every shake of fear causing his clothes to rustle, the sound more like an earthquake than fabric brushing against each other.

Incredibly slowly, the shoes turn to face them.

The person is facing them.

The person knows they're there.

The sound of scraping nails against wood fills the air, their ceiling crumpling in on top of them. He can hear the screws pop as they're ripped out of the wood with sheer force, the planks buckling and screaming around them.

The strength required to pull their hiding place apart is impossible, and yet the wood is ripped from beside them as they watch, helpless. Sawdust showers their bodies, filling their lungs with the small shards and stinging their eyes.

Chan chokes on it, spluttering uselessly as it coats the inside of his mouth, tearing his cheeks with rough splinters. He brings his now-freed arms up to try and rub it out of his eyes, but he only manages to press it in further, tears streaming down his cheeks, cutting clear lines through the yellow dust.

Rough hands press down on his shoulders, and he's lifted up out of the hiding place and into the air. His eyes are too watery to see properly, blurring the view of the man who's holding him. He tries to kick, but his legs don't respond dangling a foot in the air.

His arms are pinned to the side, and the only thing he can do is attempt to twist his body away, desperately trying to escape. With every move, sawdust is dislodged, showing the ground beneath him. Beneath him, where Jihoon lies unmoving.

There's no time to worry about the other, but the sight of his small body crumpled below him sends panic through his mind. There's no way of escape. He's trapped.

The man holding him steps backwards, and Chan writhes even more furiously, the futility of his actions bringing tears to his eyes. He coughs uselessly, sending out at small cloud of dust.

When an idea hits him.

The movement of the man walking cause his head to jolt up and down, and his limbs dangle uselessly beneath him. But with the last of his strength, he rolls his head backwards.

For the first time, he calls on sleep.

He lets the darkness envelop him, willingly surrenders his mind the the black abyss.

As his mind fades away, he knows he won't wake up here again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE STARTING TO PICK UP THE PACE HERE WOOOOOOO
> 
> thanks so much for reading as always lmao


	12. INTO THE MIRROR

He doesn't wake up, as per se, because he's already standing up and he only has to open his eyes.

It takes him no time to adjust from the usual fogginess, and he's not even tired. It's simply like he blinked, and opened his eyes somewhere completely different.

The image of Jihoon curled up on the floor imprints itself into his mind, the picture flickering every time he closes his eyes, burned into his memory. He forces himself not to think about it. He's not there anymore. He escaped.

He's safe.

It's only then that he realises he's not alone, and he spins around to face whoever else is their, ready to run at a moments notice.

He sees Seokmin in front of him.

And nothing else.

There's nothing around him except for the older man, not even a colour. There's simply a void, impossible to describe. Emptiness. There's not a single colour he can pick out, not a single feature that remains in his mind after he looks away. It's like as soon as he closes his eyes, as soon as he he sees it, it leaves his brain.

Like it was never there in the first place.

It's almost as if he immediately forgets what was there, leaving a blank in his mind that itches at his memory.

And yet Seokmin looks like he's glowing in the contrast.

His skin is alight, warm against the abyss that surrounds him. He's looking at Chan, his eyes huge and friendly, and he smiles as he sees the younger. His teeth seem impossible white, streaming out beams of light. Around him, the darkness seems to shrink back, his colours bleeding into the emptiness.

Every aspect of him seems perfect, and Chan can't look at him for too long, blinded by the glow. He takes a step forward, and realises that the void has already surrounded him.

He's standing there, in the middle of nothing.

There's only emptiness around him, and he doesn't even know how he's standing. His limbs are tired and heavy from the lack of sleep, and his eyelids flutter shut. There nothing supporting him, and he almost feels as if he could topple over and hit the ground at any second.

His eyes shut for a second, and it takes an enormous physical effort to open them again. Every muscle in his body screams at him to just lie down and fall asleep, but he refuses.

There's a sick feeling in his gut that tells him that something wrong. He doesn't want to let his guard down, goosebumps running up his arms and down his spine. The feeling only increases as he stares at Seokmin, his stomach twisting itself into intricate knots.

He knows what's going to happen a second before it actually does.

The temperature drops several degrees, and he can see Seokmin's eyes widen, his hand stretching out towards Chan like he's trying to push him out of the way of something.

As it seemed to appear after he noticed it, the emptiness shatters into to sharp shards of glass, crashing down around them like deadly raindrops.

It's soundless, but the silence seems to hum with energy, a buzz of disappearance as it crumbles around him. The reality crumbles as he tries to avoid the spears of the void. There's nothing around him, and yet he can  _see_ the cracks.

He instinctively moves, holding his arms above him to protect his head, but there's nothing to fall on him. Absolutely nothing, and yet the smashing is everywhere, the glass dropping to the floor, a spiderweb of delicate lines appearing in the air.

Seokmin is by Chan's side without having moved. He grabs the younger's hand and pulls him further into the void, dragging him along.

Chan can't think, can't pull away. There's nowhere to pull away to, there's nothing around them, there're not even actually moving- and yet he can feel the wind around him as they run, he can feel his limbs moving.

He's sprinting and he doesn't even know why. But Seokmin seems to know, he's pulling him a very certain direction, and Chan has no choice but to trust him.

And let the world crumple behind him.

And yet-

There's nothing to run from.

Because he's not in the void anymore, he's not running, Seokmin isn't holding him, and he's not even standing up.

They're sitting side by side in a shop.

The yellow lighting reflects off the black leather seats, the kind he's seen in shoe shops, soft under him. The texture doesn't quite fit, too bouncy to be a seat, and he has to ignore the fact that it feels like he's sitting on a mattress, focusing on the colours of the shop instead.

The entire shop has a yellow glow that sets his skin alight with colour. It reflects off the mirrors that line the shop, emphasising every particle of dust on their surfaces. They're speckled with age, green tinted and morphing his face, the reflection warped.

Empty racks line the walls, crisscrossing over the mirrors, holding up air and a thick layer of dust. The windows to the shop are dark, a contrast to the warm yellow of the shop, looking out into an empty mall.

The black emptiness is ruined by a huge skylight in the roof, the blue sky of the outside destroying the atmosphere. It's disjointed, it doesn't fit with the rest of the dream, and yet the silence seems to hum with anticipation.

He sinks into the seat, letting himself rest for a few seconds. It's not helping how tired he his, but he can feel the adrenaline of the sprint coursing through his veins. As he concentrates, he forces his eyes open.

"Where are we?" Chan asks, as soon as he gets his breath back and isn't about to collapse from sleep-deprivation. His own movement catches his eye, and he finally looks straight into one.

His reflection stares back at him in each mirror on the wall, eyes wide and empty.

There are huge bags under them, smudges of darkness that accentuate how black his eyes look, how emotionless his face is. He looks tired. He looks like he hasn't slept for days.

But the eye bags are quickly overlooked. The main feature on his face, the first thing he notices, is that when he looks away he can't quite forget how empty his eyes are.

How numb he looks, like every emotion has been sucked out of his face.

He has to drag his eyes away, forcing himself to focus on something else. It's hard, when every wall is covered with mirrors that remind him, so he stares at the floor, stretching his legs up.

Seokmin also stretches out beside him, long legs reaching across the room. He's seemingly not affected by the experience at all. If anything, he looks bored by it, Chan thinks, watching as the older finally gets up and starts pacing around the seats.

"What do you mean?" He finally says, making eye contact with the younger, "I thought you'd have worked it out by now," His eyes run up and down Chan, almost as if he's trying work something out, "But I guess not."

He opens his mouth, about to say something else, but ends up pausing, glancing in a mirror and frowning at his reflection. He leans in, fixing his hair, before spinning round to face Chan, a huge grin on his face, "But it's okay! It doesn't matter if you haven't, because it honestly took me a lot longer and I don't think you can ever beat my record of obliviousness."

The stream of words go in one of Chan's ears and back out the other. He wasn't expecting him to say that much, and his brain is still sleepy, unable to process anything properly. "What?" He asks, attempting to try and make out what the other had said from the pieces of his fading memory.

Seokmin just waves his hand, dismissing him, "Like I said: it doesn't matter." He pulls Chan up off the seat in a fluid motion, spinning him round. Chan has to concentrate on not tripping over, his legs as useful as wooden poles with how much he can move them. "We have things to be doing, people to be seeing, and that's a bit more important."

Chan's confusion echoes in every single mirror, his face reflecting back at him with the same amount of distrust. He looks longingly back at the leather seat, his legs already beginning to ache. His body seems heavier than normal, like he's been pumped full of a heavy metal, lead running through his bloodstream and pulling him towards the ground.

And what could there possible be to do in an empty mall?

He doesn't get to ask. Before he even gets the chance, Seokmin is pulling him out of the shop and down an empty walkway. Chan almost gives himself whiplash with how quickly he attempts to turn round, trying to take in as much information on his surroundings as he can.

With every step they take, lights flicker on a few steps in front of them, illuminating the walkway just before they reach the darkness. A few metres behind them, they turn off, plunging the mall back into darkness. From his position, Chan can tell that the lights of the shop they were just in have turned off.

It's now identical to every other shop in the mall.

The mirrors lining the walls don't end with the shop either. They're plastered onto every window, every railing, inside every room. The neon yellow lighting doesn't change as well, lighting up their way as they walk past, reflecting off the greening glass and sending warped beams of light into puddles on the floor.

The skylight lets in a surprisingly small amount of light. If not for the yellow lights, the mall would be completely dark, impossible to navigate.

"Where are we actually going?" Chan asks, hoping that Seokmin won't avoid the question this time.

The older man doesn't turn round, but Chan can tell that he's still smiling, "To find the others, of course! Where else?"

Each shop they pass is identical, and Chan wonders how Seokmin knows which one the others are actually in. "I'm not sure," he admits, trying to get more information out of him, "How long will it take to get there?"

Seokmin stops dead.

For a terrifying second, Chan thinks that he's said something wrong. He can still remember the older's eyes turning dark, the way he'd disappeared into the shadows of the corridor, how the air had turned cold around them.

"Seokmin?" He asks, tentatively.

The older finally moves, slowly moving his arm up to near his face. Chan's fear is replaced by confusion as he realises that he's looking at watch on his wrist, checking the time.

Not having a sudden personality change.

Seokmin suddenly grabs Chan's arm, moving so quickly that he hadn't even seen him next to him, and pulls him backwards by a few shops. "It won't take long," he says, frowning as he checks the insides of the stores, "but..."

He trails off, thought process interrupted by something. He peers into another shop, and all of a sudden his face lights up. "Here!" He says, pushing the doors open, gesturing for Chan to follow him inside, and switches on the lights.

It's Jun's cafe.

And yet it's not.

The tables are all pushed to the sides, knocked over and smashed. The chairs are piled on top of each other, the stuffing pulled out of the armchairs and the fabric ones stained. Legs are missing from every piece of furniture, and the huge grand piano is nothing more than a pile of firewood.

The writing on the shop window is scratched and barely legible, the beautifully stacked and displayed piles of pastries and cakes gone.

It's a wreck.

And in the very centre of the tiled floor lies a dropped tray. Shards of china from a teacup decorate the floor around it, coffee staining the tiles and a slice of sponge cake pressed into the liquid.

Seokmin nimbly jumps over the mess and starts rummaging below the counter, oblivious to Chan's bewilderment and confusion. He starts throwing things onto the floor, obviously searching for something specific.

It takes the younger a while before he can finally choke out a question, the familiar sight having shocked him speechless. "What happened?" He asks, not able to look away from the smashed china.

Seokmin doesn't look up. "Not sure," he says absentmindedly, "Probably the same thing that happened to everything else." He pauses an then shouts out with happiness, pulling something out and holding it into the air, "I found it!"

Chan's head aches. He wants to sit down, wants to try and process all that's going on, but not a single chair doesn't have parts missing. He feels slightly faint. His legs seem to sway slightly, and he clutches the leg of a nearby upturned table, trying to support himself if he falls over.

"I was wondering where this got to," says Seokmin, shaking out Wonwoo's mechanical arm and trying to brush some of the dust off. The blue light has completely faded down to a dull glow, and the metal is rusty and tarnished. Huge scratches run down the sides, deep and caked with mud, the kind of dirt that never comes clean.

Like everything else, it's old and ruined.

Seokmin throws it into the air and catches it effortlessly. The fingers twitch slightly as it falls through the air, sparks flying from the ripped wires at the joint. He seems to notice this, and not wanting to get electrocuted, slips it into his bag.

Chan can only watch, speechless.

Wonwoo's arm.

The cafe.

What had happened to destroy them? Why would anyone even  _want_ to destroy them?

The older man doesn't seem to notice him emotions. Instead, he simply jumps back over the spilled coffee and opens the door again, gesturing for Chan to leave before him.

But Chan can't leave. His eyes can't look away from the ripped furniture, the stained walls, the one finger on Wonwoo's arm that sticks out of Seokmin's bag. His mouth opens and closes wordlessly, and he's aware that he probably looks like a goldfish but can't do anything to stop it. 

Seokmin raises an eyebrow. "Are you okay?" He asks, "Do you not like coffee shops or something? Because we can leave if you want, I just wanted to pick this up. We don't have to stay any longer if you don't want-"

"I'm fine." Chan cuts him off, and his words seem a lot harsher in hindsight. Seokmin's face falls slightly, and he sighs. "Listen, I'm sorry. I just want to get out of here."

Seokmin nods, and continues to hold the door open until they've both left the shop, but his face is notably darker. His smile isn't quite as bright as it was before, and Chan can already feel the guilt pooling up in his stomach.

They walk in silence.

The lights quickly turn off inside the shop, and it goes back to being identical to every other store. After a few seconds walking, Chan's already forgotten which one it was. It would be impossible to find again, and he has a strange feeling that tells him that even if he did go to the exact same shop, it wouldn't be the cafe.

The sound of their shoes on the floor echoes through the empty mall, amplified until it's bounced off of every surface. It sends shivers down his spine, and for a second he thinks it's just because of the emptiness.

Then he can feel the sawdust in his eyes and his mouth, the splinters poking through his t-shirt and sticking into his skin like tiny daggers. He can feel the hands pulling him out of the hiding place and dangling him in the air.

He can see Jihoon.

But the sight doesn't last long, because it's suddenly replaced by Soonyoung smiling at him, sat in a soft leather chair. In the corner of his eye he can see the vast expanse of space, and the bright light of an explosion engulfing them.

He can feel it tear his skin with the force of the blast, the pain as every cell in his body is ripped into pieces.

And then he's staring at the tiles of the mall again. His head hurts, his brain spins, and his legs are like jelly. He doesn't want to move in case he falls, so just continues to stare down, completely unmoving.

"Chan?" Seokmin's voice is quiet and concerned, "Are you okay? What happened? Why are you crying?"

Slowly, Chan brings his hand up to his cheek, touching the skin softly. Seokmin's right. It's damp. "I'm not sure," he says, trying to shake the sound of radio static out of his head, "But I'm fine now."

"You've said that before," says Seokmin, and his eyes are narrowed. He's not smiling now. "It doesn't make it any more true." He takes a step before, before suddenly spinning around. The seriousness of before is gone. As is the happiness. His eyes are dark and worried, eerily empty.

"Chan," he says, placing his hands onto Chan's shoulders and squeezing them, "Did you look in the mirror?"

"What?"

"Did. You. Look. In. The. Mirror."

Chan takes a step back, pushing the older man away, "What do you mean? What mirror?"

Seokmin throws his arms out, "These mirrors!" He gestures to the rows fastened to every surface, reflecting their every movement.

He frowns, "Yeah? It's pretty hard to not look in them, they're everywhere."

"No!" Seokmin grabs his shoulders again, this time harder than before. Chan knows he can't escape again, though his body ignores his mind and attempts to pull away. "Did you make eye contact with your reflection?"

He had.

In the shoe shop, just as they'd arrived. He'd looked his reflection in the eyes, and he'd seen how empty they were.

There was a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that was beginning to swirl around his whole body.

"Yes." He says, and his voice is quiet. Somehow, he knows that whatever Seokmin says in reply isn't going to be good.

He's right.

Seokmin's face falls, and all of a sudden he's being pushed into an empty shop, the older right behind him. The door is slammed shut after them, and as he struggles to take in his surroundings again, he can hear the clicks of locks shutting closed.

He's standing in the centre of around four aisles, each one ladened with objects. The yellow lighting in this room seems slightly darker than outside, and the air seems colder. Seokmin slides the curtains on the windows across, and Chan can't even question why there are curtains.

"I was hoping we'd have longer." The older breathes, peering behind one of the curtains apprehensively, "But they know we're here now. We can't hide forever."

Chan wants to ask so many question, he's so confused and he just wants to know what's going on. But there's not enough time. The speed of Seokmin's actions, his voice, they're all rushed.

They are coming.

Seokmin turns to face him and pulls him down one of the aisles, past the hundreds of objects, further into the dark shop. "How tired are you?" He asks, as they walk, "How long will it take you to get to sleep?"

Chan's mind spins.

To get to sleep?

Like what he'd done with Jihoon. But how did Seokmin know that by falling asleep he'd end the dream? How was that possible?

He shuts his eyes, trying to see how easy it is to open them again.

And for the first time, they open with ease. In the worst time possible, despite his weak legs and cotton-wool filled head, he's wide awake.

"Pretty long." He sheepishly admits, "I'm not that tired." He doesn't know why he feels so guilty. It's not his fault. But the face Seokmin makes turns his stomach over in apologies.

"Okay." Says the older. "Okay. I've got this." He breathes out slowly, before looking Chan in the eyes. "I'm sorry. I wish there was a better way to do this." He takes a step back, dropping Chan's hand, "Stay here."

Chan does.

He doesn't want to move, not even when his realises what's going to happen. He simply stands there, waiting patiently. There's a drawn out scraping sound from the front of the store, and the door begins to rattle worryingly.

He can only hope that Seokmin hurried up. The door isn't made to last, and shakes on its hinges, about to smash into pieces. It can only take a few more hits, and then they're trapped.

Very faintly, jut audible over the crashes by the windows, Chan heard Seokmin say a single word. "Goodbye."

The world crashes down around him.

The objects seem to fall in slow motions, falling just a few milliseconds in front of the shelf itself.

He can see a plaque, wooden and with peeling paint. He can see a plant pot with a faded label, a small computer chip glowing in a familiar blue. There's a piece of wood with a sharpie scribble on it, the door of a locker, a tiny model of a bus, an empty china cup, a minuscule glass bottle tied with a purple ribbon. Straw hits his head, falling into his eyes, and a notebook full of writing and diagrams hits his arm.

They all say the same word.

Samuel.

And, just as the wooden shelf hits his head, just as he blacks out, he sees a shard of a mirror falling through the air.

It falls perfectly in front of him, displaying the reflection for a millisecond before he falls back asleep.

But it's not him looking back in the reflection. No, it's not him. It's someone he's never seen before, but someone who he definitely knows the name of.

A young boy.

Samuel.


	13. FLOWERING WINTER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are some mentions of needles and blood

 He almost doesn't wake up.

As soon as he opens his eyes, they close again. They're too heavy, and he's too tired to try and keep them open.

He's  _so_ tired.

He just wants to go home. He just wants to get into his bed and sleep away everything that's happened.

He wants to hide under his covers and forget the world.

He even wants to see his parents. The thought scares him, he hasn't spoken to his parents for over two years. But he's so tired of feeling lonely, of feeling like he's the only person in this whole goddamn world.

He wants to be held.

Something brushes against his cheeks, but he can't move his arms to get it off. They feel like lead, stuck to his sides and too heavy to move.

He's so tired.

Why can't he just sleep?

He's sick of dreaming. He just wants to slide into a dreamless sleep and never wake up.

Something else brushes his cheek, and he frowns. He's too warm and sleepy to move, but it's incredibly annoying. His fingers twitch, debating whether to push whatever it is away. His arms are so heavy, he doesn't even want to attempt to lift them.

But he can't rest. There's something urging him to get up, to push away whatever's brushing his cheek and find out what's happening. It's the same feeling that tells he doesn't want to sleep, the fighter inside of him that doesn't want him to give up.

His eyelids flutter in annoyance. He can't quite work up the energy to open them, but he can't get back to sleep with his cheek being touched by something.

His mind is at war with itself for what seems like hours. Every thought seems to take years to think, his mind incredibly sluggish. But the fire inside of him doesn't want to wait.

He opens his eyes.

Even that small movement takes so much energy. He's so tired, so so tired, but he can't go to sleep.

Not just yet.

He's lying in a field of snow.

The land as far as the eye can see is white. Covered in ice and snow, completely frozen over. The trees are completely leafless, stretching out their bare branches like crooked fingers. The snow around him is untouched, a white blanket that's muffling all sound. Even the blue sky above him is watered down, the light blue weak and faint.

The entire world is painted in shades of white, black and blue. A watered down masterpiece.

It's beautiful.

And yet, as he pushes himself off the ground, sitting up, his legs scream in pain. Snowflakes cascade off of his cheeks. He can't feels his fingers and toes.

As he looks down, his skin is tinged blue, paler than he's ever seen it before.

He can see his veins like intricate spiderwebs stretching across his arms, a deep colour that he can't look away from. His palms are almost white, barely distinguishable from the snow that surrounds him.

Slowly, he raises one hand to his forehead and winces. His head feels full of wool, his mind unable to work properly. He's so tired, and even as his fingers come back with blood on them, he can't bring himself to panic.

The snow is so soft.

So comfortable, like a warm mattress beneath him. He could bury himself in it, piling it over his body and then he wouldn't be cold any more. He'd be warm, and he could just go back to sleep. It would be so easy just to close his eyes...

Just as they're about to close, his eyes open again.

He can't fall asleep.

His hands are cold, and burying them in the snow will only make that worse.

He needs to get somewhere warm.

He tries to stand up, the snow soaking through the knees of his trousers, ice water trickling down his legs. The world seems to shift around him, and he steps out to try and balance himself but it does nothing. He hits the ground, hard.

Where he was lying before, the snow is stained red. There's a cut somewhere on his forehead, and although he can't see it or even feel it, he knows it's deep. There's a lot of blood.

His limbs are drained of energy, but the realisation that he's cut himself fuels him to pick himself back up again. He stands slowly, focusing on balancing, ignoring how his legs protest and wobble dangerously.

He takes a step forwards.

He doesn't know where he's going, nothing in front of him except endless white, but as his foot lands safely, he can't help the wave of ecstatic happiness that sweeps over him.

One step.

It's one step towards nothing, but it's still a step. If he can make one, he can make more.

He focuses on moving his feet, and it takes more concentration that he remembers. Surely, it hasn't always been this hard to walk. Surely, he thinks, as he slowly realises that he can't feel the ends of his legs.

His feet are completely numb, and the feeling is steadily making its way up his calves. He can't feel the snow he's wading through, can't feel the ground beneath his toes. There's only nothing, and right in his heels, a burning sensation beginning to build up that he knows can't be good.

There's a word for it, there's something at the back of his brain that knows what's happening, but he just can't reach it.

Just like everything else, his mind is fuzzy. His thoughts are too blurry to understand, even as he thinks them. Maybe the numbness has spread to his mind, the first place it infected before it started creeping up his legs.

He takes another step forwards, and his ankle gives way underneath him. He crashes to the ground, and it's on a slant that he hadn't noticed before so he starts to roll and doesn't slow down.

He's falling down the hill head over heel, his feet becoming uncomfortably warm, the numbness just reaching his knees. The snow drips down his shirt and soaks through to his spine, the icy water coating his entire body.

It's only then he realises he can't move his fingers, though as he tumbles down it doesn't matter, as there's a sharp snap and suddenly he doesn't think his wrist will work anyway.

There's snow in his mouth, in his eyes, and a red trail from his bleeding forehead on the snow behind him. He tries to spit it out, but he's falling too quickly, too quickly to even think.

And after what seems like years of falling, he hits a tree.

It punches itself into his stomach, winding him so that he can't even take a breath. The rough bark easily scratches his stomach through the thin wet material of his shirt.

He slowly starts to regain his senses, trying to ignore the throbbing in his head and focusing instead on the pain in his arms and legs. He can't move his wrist no matter how much he tries, he can't even feel his ankle to know if he can move it or not, and his forehead is starting to sting fiercely, blood dripping down his face and into his eyes.

He can't push himself up again.

There's no strength left in his body, nothing left for him to latch onto and harness. Even as he tries to support himself on the tree trunk, all the rough bark does is tear his fingertips, his nails beginning to peel away, leaving raw pink skin behind that's beginning to bleed.

He can't go on.

He physically can't.

He mentally can't.

And despite how far he's come, despite his fighting spirit, despite the feeling that tells him that he shouldn't be alone, despite his burning curiosity.

He gives up, and finally allows the hot tears to rub down his cheeks.

They burn his skin with the contrast in temperature, almost like boiling water. He can't move his hands to wipe them away, only sniffing pathetically.

Why him?

Why did this have to happen to him?

Why could he have never see the advertisement, why couldn't he have just continued walking home like any other day, why couldn't he have decided against it?

"Chan?"

It's the first thing he's heard in a long time that isn't his own cries for help. He doesn't know how long he's been lying on the ground, the coldness firmly in his thighs and the burning sensation completely engulfing his feet.

He tries to twist himself around, but he can't turn round to face whoever it is, can't move himself at all, can't do anything except lie there and cry.

Very slowly, he manages to work up the strength to part his lips. The skin sticks together and peels away, cracking painfully. "Help."

His voice is quiet, barely a whisper. He squeezes his eyes shut as soon as the word leaves his mouth, praying that whoever said his name heard him, praying that they won't leave him out in the snow alone.

The crunching of snow sounds behind him, and there are hands on his side, warm hands that start to dig him out of the snow and roll him over. Every movement hurts, and he cries out as they move him, his chest burning with pain. Tears spring to his eyes without his consent, sharp spikes of fire burning through his ribs.

"This is going to hurt," says the voice, "But we need to get you warm."

He can feel his body being dragged away from the tree, but he can't open his eyes to work out where to. Even without the trunk obstructing his movements, he still can't work up the strength to lift his arms. His head lolls to the side. He's too tired.

"Chan, you can't fall asleep yet." Says the voice, and Chan suddenly realises that it's Jisoo carrying him, Jisoo talking to him.

The older drops him on the snow, causing his head to hit the hard ground and his ribs to protest. His wrist hangs limply by his side, and he doesn't even want to begin to think about his legs. Blood is plastered on the left side of his face from his cut, and he has to struggle to open his eyes, his eyelids refusing to open.

But even just knowing that Jisoo is there gives him strength. He knows he isn't alone. He knows that he can't give up.

The blue sky above him is too bright. The spidery branches of the tree cover the very corner of the view like tiny cracks. Jisoo's face appears in the edge of his sight, frowning with concern. His forehead is lined with creases, and his eyes are overwhelmingly sad, full of a misery that Chan can't quite place.

He's holding something out.

Chan doesn't recognise it, and he doesn't think he's supposed to. It's blurry, and real objects aren't blurry, even in dreams. The object Jisoo is holding isn't from a dream. It just seems wrong, out of place, too disjointed.

It's from the real world.

Chan's eyes widen- how did something from the real world get here does that mean he can wake up again how did they get it who's samue- but before he can open his mouth, it's injected into his arm.

And it's the first thing he's felt in that arm for a while.

It's stings, almost amplified by the numbness of his skin around it. Whatever was in the syringe feels like fire burning through his veins. He half expects to see molten red lines across his blue-tinged skin, travelling further up his arm and down to his wrist.

Where the fire engulfs it.

His shattered bones scream in pain as they're forced back together. He can feel them fusing back together slowly, his fingers beginning to straighten out. The strange colour of his skin begins to drain, the normal shade flooding back with pinpricks of lava.

It makes his way up his neck and into his face, the skin by the cut on his forehead stitching itself closed. Every cell near the gash is burning with an intensity that he can't describe, the agony flooding through his mind and wrapping his thoughts in a pain-filled haze.

His ribs crack audibly as they mend themselves, and the liquid agony slowly makes its way down his thighs, breathing life back into his useless frostbitten legs. And yet, compared to the numbness, the burning cold that's slowly been spreading through his body, the fiery pain seems tame, simply warming feeling back into his limbs.

The numbness in his ankle is the last to be healed, the cold slowly seeping out, dripping like melting snow. Every bone in him, every cell protests as they're ripped apart and fused back together, his ankle burning with the strength of a sun, and he cries out, squeezing his eyes shut to try and block out the agony.

It doesn't seem right that the outside is still cold, that his breath still puffs out like steam in the frozen air. The heat he's radiating should have melted all the ice in a ten-foot radius, leaving his lying in a huge puddle.

He opens his eyes and pushes himself up.

There's a strange energy coursing through his body that wasn't there before. It's forces his eyes open, sending his mind into overdrive. It's still fuzzy, his thoughts a mile away, but he sees every snowflake in surprising clarity, every crack in the bark on the tree.

"What was that?" He whispers. Even his voice seems strange, tones that he's never noticed before leaping through his speech. He's hyper aware of his surroundings, on everything happening around him.

Jisoo only smiles wryly. "I can't tell you," he admits, "We only have a little time left, and there's too much to explain."

Slowly, Chan brushes his hand over his mended forehead. The skin there feels exactly the same as it did before he cut it, almost like he never cut it in the first place. It's scarily smooth. "Only a little time left? What's happening?"

Jisoo looks around, his eyes worried in stark contrast to his smile. "Chan, you can't be scared. No matter what happens, you can't be scared. You can't give up. Promise me that."

Chan doesn't want to promise it. He's already so scared, already close to giving up. He's so tired. And yet, he doesn't want to betray Jisoo. There's something about the older's words that seem to have a deeper meaning, something hidden behind the actual letter. He takes in a breath, "I promise."

"Good." Jisoo takes his hand, his cold skin almost painful against Chan's humming veins, the molten liquid not completely gone. "You're going to wake up."

"What?" He's going to wake up? How is that possible? And how does Jisoo know that he's asleep, how does he know that he has to wake up in the first place?

"The pain from the injection will fade, and you'll get very sleepy. Within five minutes you'll be asleep, but instead of waking up in another dream, you'll wake up at Pledis."

"How do you know ab-"

"There's no time for explanations." Jisoo cuts him off, and looks over his shoulder again. It's almost like he's looking for someone, or waiting for something. "You're our last chance. You have to succeed, Channie, you have to."

Chan's head is spinning. He can feel the last of the pain beginning to drain from his ankle, and already his vision is losing its clarity. He can feel the familiar pull on his eyelids, the heaviness in his limbs beginning to set in.

He can feel his mouth dry, swallowing becoming almost impossible. "Succeed?" He manages to choke out, and hopes that the message will convey.

It seems to work, as Jisoo nods. "Yeah, you can succeed. We believe in you." He says, and Chan's heart sinks.

That wasn't what he meant at all. And now, with his tongue lying useless in his mouth, he doesn't have another chance to ask. He's simply left alone with his questions, alone in his mind to wake up somewhere completely different.

But how does he even know that Jisoo's telling the truth? His gut instinct tells him to trust the older, but he can't quite stop doubting him, always double-guessing. What are his motives? And why Chan, why did it have to be him? It just doesn't make sense.

A wave of nausea rushes over him, and he drops forward, having to put his hand out to support him. The snow is surprising cold against his palm, considering the rest of his body is half-submerged in it. He squeezes his eyes shut, the dizziness overrunning his senses. His body is numb and unmoving, and he can focus on breathing, waiting for the feeling to pass.

There are hands on his back and his sides, supporting him. They slowly lower him back down into the snow, his neck warm against the freezing ice. The water hasn't soaked through his clothes, he realises, like it had before when he'd fallen down the hill. Even though he's lying on his back, the snow piling up at his sides, he's completely dry.

Almost like he's not actually there.

He can't feel his toes again, but this time it's the paralysis of sleep rather than frostbite. His eyelids feel heavy, fluttering shut, and his mind seems worn down, a haze of half-formed thoughts.

Jisoo leans over him, his face blurry and his voice far, far away. His words are almost indistinguishable from meaningless sound, but Chan manages to catch half of a sentence, trying to sting the context together in his mind.

"— need Samuel to know—"

And, above him, just as he closes his eyes to fall asleep for the last time, he sees the bright blue sky shift to a stormy grey, the thunderous rain beginning to fall around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING <3


	14. THE FOURTEENTH BOY

There's a strange sensation that washes over him as soon as he opens his eyes.

The overwhelming feeling that something is different, even if he can't quite place it. His surroundings seem to fade in and out, his head pounding.

The air seems too cold against his skin, the thin blanket tangled between his legs and sticking to his skin, the mattress pushing against his back too hard. Every sense is amplified slightly, only just noticeable.

For a few seconds, he can only stare at the ceiling, body completely paralysed.

The grey pain seems to swirl like storm clouds, the uneven streaks of colour mirroring the thunderous sky outside. He can hear the rain hammering down on the roof above him, the distant crack of lighting and rumble of thunder the only break in the silence.

His hand very slowly reaches up and massages his forehead, trying to to make sense of the flood of memories rushing through his mind. The throbbing in his head only increases as he attempts to understand, losing the sense of fiction and reality.

There's something about dreams nagging the back of his head.

Was he asleep? He's on a bed, so possibly. He's not tired, he realises, and that doesn't seem right. The feeling of being awake is foreign, he almost expects to have to struggle to move.

There's a particularly loud clap of thunder that makes him jump, sitting straight up in bed. He presses his palms against his heart, trying to calm to frantic beating.

His eyes take in the room he's in very slowly. He knew he wasn't in his apartment or his room at home from the colour of the ceiling, but... he wasn't expecting this.

The room is completely bare, excluding the hospital-like bed he's sat on and a tiny chest of drawers, the contents spilling onto the floor, wood splintering into broken pieces. There's a small room leading off from the main one with a toilet in, and a black security camera in the corner.

It's motionless, tilting downwards towards the floor. It seems a strange place to record, but then he notices the brightly coloured wires poking out of the neck, all of them cut.

Someone's broken it.

The more he looks, the more wrong it seems. Almost like he's seen it before when it was working, but he has no memory of it. Just the overwhelming feeling that the camera could definitely film before he fell asleep.

He shifts his body, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, fully intending to inspect the security camera. As he does, his foot hits something on the floor, sending it rolling across the tiles.

Surprised, he looks down.

It's an empty clear container, the lid lying a few inches away. The contents, or what he assumes are the contents, are spilled all over the floor. Tiny white pills that look like painkillers. And they seem so, so familiar.

They're about the size of a tic-tac, with a thin breakable line down the middle.

He reaches out to take one.

As soon as he picks it up, it slips out of his fingers. It lands back on the floor, rolling a few centimetres before coming to a stop.

He doesn't move to pick it up again.

He can only stay completely still as his headache overwhelms him entirely, filling every inch of his body with memories.

The dreams.

Pledis.

_Samuel._

He gets to his feet.

He still has no idea why the camera's broken, or why the blindingly white walls are now a stormy grey, but he's immensely thankful for it.

His shoes are loud against the floor in the silence as he makes his way over to the door, taking it in. It's exactly the same as it was before he fell asleep.

A red light just above it, the metal securely fastened shut with a lack, and the hinges situated on the left side. More specifically, the top hinge. Rusted over and dented.

Now, looking closer, he can see that the metal's been badly put together. It's bent out of shape, like it's been forced open before, barely holding the door to the wall. It's a miracle that Pledis haven't changed it.

And as Chan prepares to ram his shoulder into the door, he can't be more thankful.

The collision makes a high-pitched grinding sound that causes his insides to shrivel up, and his shoulder erupts in pain, his arm hanging limply by his side. Even as he attempts to move his fingers, it's too painful. His arm is essentially useless, his shoulder protesting with every step he takes.

But it worked.

The metal sheet lies on the ground, exposing the empty corridor to him. Even the white walls seem to stare at him in shock, the security camera directly outside his room frozen.

Freedom. It's so close, and Chan can't move from the overwhelming euphoria. He did it. He can escape. There's a way out, and it's so close. His body is completely rigid, the shock locking his joints together.

There's total silence.

And then the alarm begins to sound, a high pitched wail that breaks Chan out of his stupor. The walls are catapulted into a bloody red from neon lights in the ceiling, the security camera thrown into movement, focusing on him and recording his every move.

Chan runs as fast as he can, down the corridor.

He sprints towards the door at the end, unable to see anything anything except the escape, the widow visible through the glass that symbolises escape. The grey sky swirling with clouds, angry with rain.

But he can't help but feel like he's missing something.

When he'd been in the corridor before.

He'd seen something that had seemed insignificant, and it all seemed like so long ago that he couldn't remember what it was. Something simple, something that could easily be overlooked.

He stops running.

Very slowly, his heart in his throat, he turns to the door nearest to him.

Almost identical to his, a red light above the top, locked and bolted with no way of ever getting it open. A name printed on the metal, just above the centre.

Hong Jisoo.

The door says Hong Jisoo.

Jisoo is inside.

The door next to it says Yoon Jeonghan, the door after that Lee Jihoon, and after that some Chinese characters that he knows either say Minghao or Junhui.

They weren't just part of a dream.

They were all dreamers, just like him.

Each of them had signed up to the Pledis drug trials, each of them been drugged. Everything suddenly seemed to become a bit clearer, the fog of confusion that had become a permanent haze around him lifted a bit.

Every time they'd mentioned something slightly odd, something that they couldn't possible know, it was because they'd been though it themself.

But what had happened to them?

He doesn't have a chance to work it out. The door at the other end of the corridor bursts open, revealing a few scientists. Their lab coats are pristine white, almost blindingly so, but Chan can't take his eyes off something else.

Each one of them is holding a gun, and every gun is pointed directly at him.

His blood runs cold, and his body acts on instincts he never knew he had, moving before his brain has even begun to process the situation. With one last glance at the locked doors, he sprints the last few metres to the end of the corridor.

He throws himself through to double doors and around the corner, flinching as a bullet flies through the windows few moments later, showering the floor with glass.

If he'd been even a few milliseconds slower, the glass wouldn't be the only thing lying on the floor.

There's a guilt pooling in the bottom of his stomach that he left the others behind, but rationally he knows that he'd have been shot if he'd stayed.

He doesn't have time to look around, doesn't have time to choose which direction to run in. Instead, he chooses blindly, running in whatever direction is closest. There's no chance to pause and get his breath back.

Each corridor is identical, the white paint spotless and perfect. Each one has the same number of doors, the same number of windows. It's a deadly labyrinth with no escape.

But Chan remembers that Pledis wasn't just doors. He'd passed science labs as he'd entered, just before he'd reached the corridor where he'd been drugged. If he could find his way back to those, he could find his way back to the reception.

And if he made it to the the reception, he'd make it outside.

Outside, where the rain would soak him, the thunder roaring above his head, lighting lighting up the grimy alleyways. Outside, where he'd be free.

Where he could go  _home._

The thought almost stops him in his tracks.

_Home._

He's so close, so close to going back to his apartment, so close to being able to to apologise to Mingming, so close to being able to curl underneath his bed covers and simply shut out the entire world.

He'd give anything to be beneath his sheets, ignoring the beeping of the alarm as it announced he was late for class for the fifth time that morning. To have to throw his clothes on and skip breakfast in sacrifice for five more minutes of rest.

He pushes open another set of doors, expecting to face yet another identical corridor, but instead facing a large grey staircase.

There's no time to slow himself down, no time for his legs to realise that he's not running along flat ground anymore. He makes it down the first few steps safely, before tripping over his own feet and flying to the bottom.

He lands in a crumpled pile in the landing halfway down the stairs, limbs twisted painfully. It clouds his mind for a second, taking all too long to regain his senses. There's a scrape on a chin that begins to sting immediately, the skin throbbing in protest.

And there's still no time to pause. He scrambles back to his feet, launching himself down the next flight of stairs, pushing off from the banister. Very faintly, he can hear the sound of heavy shoes running, the squeak and bang of the doors being pushed open hard enough to crash into the wall.

Despite the thought that the scientists have gained on him, he can't help but grin at what lies at the bottom of the staircase.

A huge glass window looking into a pristine white lab containing all sorts of fancy equipment he doesn't recognise. There are scientists in there as well, all decked out in full hazmat suits, all staring at him openly.

He's been here before.

The reception must be near.

He takes of again, fuelled by a new surge of hope. He can't feel the burn in his legs anymore as they protest at such sudden movement after days of lying completely still. He can't feel the remnants of the headache that's lurked in his mind since he woke up.

All he can feel is excitement, adrenaline coursing through his veins, happiness bubbling out through his mouth.

Pushing past a stunned scientist, he sprints down past the window and through another set of doors. Not every lab is the same, and he can use that to locate the exit, make his way towards the outside using his vague recollection of the direction he'd headed in when he'd arrived.

Part of him wishes that he'd payed more attention, that if he had he would have to be relying on such unreliable memories. Telling him that the faint familiarity that he's basing he's bid for freedom on isn't enough.

But he has to ignore it.

There's thing he can do except rely on his instincts, rely on the part of him that tells him that he'll be fine. That even the smallest recognition is enough.

He turns a corner too sharply and crashes into a window, the sound echoing off of the empty walls. His arm protests, bruises already beginning to form, but he ignores it and continues to run as fast as he can.

He runs through corridor after corridor.

Pushes open door after door.

Turns corner after corner.

But he's running out of breath, his legs starting to shake uncontrollably. His face feels uncomfortably warm, blood humming through his veins and pounding in his head like a throbbing migraine. His lungs don't seem to take in enough air, struggling to pump the oxygen around his body, and his breath comes out in loud gasps.

His chest aches, a combination of not enough air and his fall down the stairs, and there's a strange darkness beginning the creep in around the edges of his vision, dancing white spots covering every wall.

And yet, he pushes on, harnessing the adrenaline that surges through him and pushing through yet another set of identical doors.

To find himself in the reception.

It's identical to how it was when he entered, the beanbags unmoved, the fish still swimming aimlessly around their tank. The receptionist's mouth hangs open in shock, phone dangling forgotten from her perfectly manicured fingernails.

And the large windows that look out into the alleyway outside.

The ground is soaked with rain, large puddles around every drain and water pipe. The sky above flickers with light, and a sodden newspaper sticks to the grey building opposite, plastered to the bricks with rain.

It's beautiful.

Freedom, so close to him. Nothing more than a sheet of glass between him and the rain, nothing more than a thin sheet. He's so close to his apartment, so close to his roommate, so close to being free and never having to look back. So close to being able to call the police to investigate Pledis, to getting the others freed.

He takes a step forward, ready to make a final spring towards the door.

But he can't.

There's someone in the way.

A young boy whose face looks eerily familiar, whose name is just out of reach, the syllables so close and on the tip of his round. But he just can't think, just can't remember who it is, just can't look away from him.

His eyes are empty and dark.

The name is so close, and Chan knows it's so important. Why can't he remember it? He had it only a few seconds ago, but it's completely gone, only a few traces left to suggest that it was ever there.

The boy takes a step towards Chan.

He tilts his head, almost inspecting him. There's something unsettling about him, something that Chan quite place. His eyes seem slightly too big for his face, and even they look familiar.

He's seen them once, in a mirror. They'd been looking back at him from his own face, wide and empty.

"Samuel?" Chan whispers.

The boy doesn't answer. His eyes don't move away from Chan's, don't break eye contact. And the older boy is powerless to stop it, unable to move, unable to do anything except stare at it in horror.

Its eyes are too big, unsettlingly big and  _wrong_. Void of any emotion at all.

Numb.

Whatever it is, it wasn't Samuel anymore.

Vaguely, he can hear footsteps behind him, the barking out of orders. He can hear yelling and shouting, the crack of a gun being fired. He can see a bullet fly just past his ear, a deadly blur of a warning.

And yet his legs are fixed in place, his arms hanging limply by his sides.

There are hands on his sides, dragging him away, dragging him away from the window and back into the building. And he can't fight back, can't push them away even as there's a sharp prick in his neck as a needle is shoved into his skin.

He lies limply as the drug begins to work, the blackness of sleep beginning to cover his vision. The muffled words of the scientists around him get further and further away until he's surrounded by little more that silence.

And even as his last chance of freedom slips away, even as every chance he ever had at escaping is crushed, he doesn't feel anything.

All he feels is empty, and the unsettling feeling of Samuel's eyes staring into his.

It doesn't look away until he's completely asleep.


	15. THE MOST BLUE SKY

It's warm.

There's a low buzz by his ear, presumably some sort of small insect. He bats it away without opening his eyes, lost in the feeling of the warmth on his arms and legs.

It's the kind of warmth that comes from sitting in sunshine for a while, the kind that reaches down to your bones. Even the grass around him is warm, brushing his arms as he stretches.

He opens his eyes.

He's sat on the top of a hill, looking down onto a huge city that he swears he's never seen before.

It's beautifully coloured in shades of silver, blue and gold, shimmering in the sunlight, white reflecting off of their metallic surfaces. The buildings stretch impossibly high into the clouds, puncturing them like pillows, the stuffing falling out.

Even from this close, it seems small and mappable. It's almost as if he's looking down on it, through there's clearly a path that leads from where he's sitting to the largest of the skyscrapers.

It's strangely quiet as well, a sort of silence that doesn't seem to fit with the cities he's seen before. It's too clean, too  _perfect._

Everything around him is at full vibrancy.

He sits up, lost in staring for what seems like hours.

He only manages to come back to earth when the buzzing by his ear returns. This time he can see the insect, a brightly coloured bee flying harmlessly around his shoulder. His hand is right by a small pink flower, he notices, though he can't quite remember the name of it.

There's something else, something that he can't quite place. Something to do with the sharp sting in his neck, perhaps, his hand coming up to massage the area.

He stands up.

Something  _missing._

But as much as he thinks, as much as he tries to remember, his mind stays completely blank.

But he knows that there's people in the building that the path leads to waiting for him, people that will welcome him.

He takes his first steps into the city, rubbing the last of the sleep out of his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so it ends
> 
> i cant believe it took me so long to finish, but thanks for making it all the way to the end <3


	16. a vague explanation??

I've had multiple comments about people being confused so,,,

here's a quick explanation!

firstly, I want to apologise if it made absolutely no sense (whoops). I _did_ have an plan at one point, but Samuel ended up playing a much more important role that I'd originally planned it (in the beginning, I planned only to name drop him a few times and then have him at the end as a code or something), so there was a lot there that didn't actually get an explanation.

also, I'm not good at deciding what to explicitly say and what to let readers infer,, so i guess that didn't really help matters. there's probably bits i have in my head that never made it actually into the fic.

SO! here are a few questions i think probably need answering

 **Why were the members so obsessed with remembering Samuel?** I tried to hint at this through the broken door, and the fact that Pledis really needed 13 people, but basically Samuel had escaped the dreams somehow. As shown, they can communicate in the dreams, so none of the members actually knew what had happened to him other than he'd gone. The reason they wanted Chan to find out what had happened to him is because they wanted go know whether he'd actually escaped or he'd died of something.

 **Why was Samuel still in the dreams then?** in reality, it's because my plans for him changed. In the fic, its probably because what was left was a remainder of what he used to represent there, or just proof that he used to exist.

 **What actually happened to Samuel?** Pledis took his soul. or something along those lines. He left too much of himself behind in the dreams? Pledis had to stop him from running away again? its open to interpretation

 **Who were 'they'?** this one was pretty much up to opinion, but i was trying to insinuate that it was the Pledis staff, doing whatever they actually wanted to do through the drug trials originally. Either that, or it's just how each person interpreted the staff in their mind. Or just something from the dreamer's past that was reappearing.

 

and i think thats about it for now? If there's any more bits that you don't understand, or just don't really make sense (because I know I've probably left multiple bits out) then please comment more questions!


End file.
